Geographical terms have long been the source of conflict between nations. Naming rights cause geopolitical disputes all throughout the world, from the Arabian Gulf to the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Japan versus the East Sea.
US authorities have been watching nervously for years as nationalist fervor was stoked in many parts of the world by disagreements over names on maps, attempting to either remain out of the conflict or subtly promote peace.
President Donald Trump said that the Gulf of Mexico will henceforth be referred to as the “Gulf of America.” This abrupt change in nomenclature has taken the United States from a reluctant arbiter to a combative one.
Hours after his return to the White House, Trump signed an executive order referring to the body of water as a “indelible part of America” that is essential to US fishing and oil production and “a favorite destination for American tourism and recreation activities.”
Soon after, Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, used the phrase “Gulf of America” when referring to a winter storm, and the US Coast Guard used it in a press release about implementing Trump’s new crackdown on migrants.
Trump’s statement, according to deep-sea ecologist Andrew Thaler, was “very silly” and would probably be disregarded by maritime experts.
Sites within the United States can be renamed by a president, like Trump did.
According to Thaler, the founder of Blackbeard Biologic Science and Environmental Advisors, “the Gulf of Mexico, however, is a body of water that borders several countries and includes pockets of high seas.”
“Renaming international geology and oceanic features by a US president is truly unprecedented. He stated that any effort to rename the entire Gulf of Mexico would just be symbolic.
Mexico retaliates
Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, has boldly proposed referring to the United States as “Mexican America,” using a map from long before Washington annexed a third of her nation in 1848.
“For us it is still the Gulf of Mexico and for the entire world it is still the Gulf of Mexico,” she stated on Tuesday.
The nearest authority on harmonizing names for international waters is the International Hydrographic Organization, which was founded a century ago and works to survey the world’s seas and oceans.
The next meeting of the United Nations’ expert panel on geographical names is scheduled for April 28.
The Institute of General Semantics’ president emeritus, Martin H. Levinson, stated that it was unclear how much political capital Trump would spend to try to get his name recognized by other nations.
“Does he really want to strong-arm them for something as minor as this?” Levinson inquired.
“I think the political benefit is to the domestic audience that he’s playing to — saying we’re patriotic, this is our country, we’re not going to let the name be subsumed by other countries,” he stated.
Although he was skeptical that other nations would alter the name, he acknowledged that Google Earth, a more accessible resource for laypeople, might provide a different name, as it has in the past.
‘Scenic geopolitics’
One of the most contentious issues is that South Korea has long objected to the name “Sea of Japan” being applied to the body of water to its east and has pushed for the East Sea to be used instead.
At the local level, Korean-Americans have advocated for school textbooks to refer to the East Sea instead of the Sea of Japan, which the United States, an ally of both nations, has maintained.
In the Middle East, Iran refers to it as the “Persian Gulf,” Turkey calls it the “Basra Gulf,” and Trump sparked controversy during his previous term by using the phrase “Arabian Gulf.”
Trump’s action, according to geography professor Gerry Kearns of Maynooth University in Ireland, was due to the “geopolitics of spectacle” but also demonstrated his ideological inclination.
According to Kearns, Trump is attempting to project a new version of the Monroe Doctrine, which was the United States’ 1823 vow that it will rule the Western Hemisphere, by threatening to seize Greenland and the Panama Canal.
“Names work because they are shared; we know we are talking about the same thing,” he said in an essay.
“In claiming the right to force others to use the name of his choosing, Trump is asserting a sort of sovereignty over an international body of water.”
