This month during a busy news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate, United States President-elect Donald Trump announced his latest idea to revise the world map: “We’re going to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. in the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring.”
He reiterated: “That includes a large field, the Gulf of America.” What a beautiful name. “
The Gulf of Mexico, which runs along most of Mexico’s east coast and cuts through five southern US states, is an important international hub for shipping, fishing, oil drilling and other commercial activities. The body of water was baptized as such four hundred years ago before the US or Mexico existed.
Of course, the renaming of the joint US president will not need the approval of Mexico or any other country. Additional cartographic improvements floated by the incoming leader included seizing the Panama Canal, ceding control of Greenland and taking Canada.
Despite the “beautiful ring” in which Trump found a new name that will come from the Gulf of Mexico, this proposed step is consistent with his history of extreme opposition to Mexico, a country that he said is disproportionately composed of “rapists” and other criminals. And speaking of “goodness”, Trump repeatedly demanded during his first term as president that Mexico foot the bill for the “big, beautiful wall” he thought was being built on the US-Mexico border.
Indeed, Trump blames the United States’ southern neighbor for the northward flow of “illegal” immigrants and drugs – as if the US’s need for illegal substances and the US’s collective habit of destroying other people’s countries have nothing to do with fueling drug trafficking and immigration. And, of course, the US economy’s reliance on undocumented and exploited workers does not play any role in this equation.
Never one to give up an opportunity for repeated hypocrisy, Trump added the following warning to his Gulf of Mexico announcement at Mar-a-Lago: “And Mexico must stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country.” However, the renaissance of golf will put the Mexicans in their place.
At least, the “Gulf of America” project is less aggressive than previous ideas that came from Trump’s brain, such as the shooting of missiles in Mexico to fight drug cartels – organizations that happened at the same time. US demand and legalization of drugs.
The hullaballoo over rebranding also provides an easy distraction from, you know, the real problems — which is what Trump’s signature bombastic xenophobia is meant to do in the first place.
Far-right US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, for one, wasted no time heeding Trump’s call to arms. Just two days after the news conference at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, he introduced a bill that would rename the Gulf of Mexico in accordance with the wishes of the president-elect.
According to the political website The Hill, the bill “would direct the chairman of the Board of Place Names under the secretary of the Interior to rename all federal documents and maps within 180 days of being signed into law”. Greene added his convincing sales pitch: “Our gap. The proper name is the Gulf of America, and that is what the whole world should refer to.”
As it turns out, it is not the first time that American politicians have suggested that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed. An Associated Press article recalls an episode in 2012 when a member of the Mississippi state legislature introduced a bill to give the name “Gulf of America” to certain stretches of water that touch Mississippi’s beaches – “a move later called a ‘joke'”.
Meanwhile, a little further back in the region’s timeline, the Gulf of Mexico played out another tragic example of imperialism that occurred in 1914 through the eyes of US Democratic President Woodrow Wilson. The website of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum commemorated that year’s “Tampico Incident,” named after a port city in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas on the Gulf of Mexico where “American warships were stationed off the coast to protect American oil.” interests.”
The previous year, the coup d’état of Mexican President Francisco I Madero had taken place with the help of the American ambassador to Mexico at the time, and the rule of General Victoriano Huerta had begun. In 1914, the new American ambassador to Mexico supported the resistance of Huerta, whose forces had the audacity to arrest nine US sailors while American warships continued to sit innocently on the coast.
In the version of the incident provided by the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum, “the commander of US forces in the area demanded a 21-day salute and apologized to Huerta after the sailors were immediately released”. The Mexican government rejected these demands, “and President Wilson used the events as an excuse to ask Congress for permission to launch an armed invasion of Mexico”.
And voila: “Events soon led to the work of [the port city of] Veracruz by US forces. “
In other words, there are many reasons people might oppose renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
And while Trump’s insistence on behaving like a caricature of himself makes it easy to cast him as some sort of deviation from US foreign policy, at the end of the day, imperialism is plain and simple — and that’s one thing you can’t do. rename it.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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