Does Trump have the authority to rename ‘Gulf of Mexico’? Obama did it first, but for this noble reason

President-elect Donald Trump had many scratching their heads when he shared an unexpected proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico — the stretch of seawater connecting the U.S. south, Mexico and parts of the Caribbean — the “Gulf of America.”

“[It] has a beautiful ring,” Trump said during a Tuesday press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. He continued, “The Gulf of America. What a beautiful name.”

The incoming 47th president of the United States argued the name change was “appropriate” because “we help Mexico a lot” and “do most of the work” in terms of combating cartels and drug trafficking coming from the neighboring North American country.

Trump’s surprising announcement may have some wondering whether he actually has the authority to rename a geographical feature like the Gulf of Mexico, which has had the same name for at least 400 years. The short answer is yes.

In fact, there is precedent for a U.S. president renaming a geographical feature. In 2015, President Barack Obama used his executive powers through the Department of Interior to rename Mount McKinley, the highest U.S. peak located in Alaska, which was named after former President William McKinley. Obama instead named the peak Mount Denali to improve relations with Native Americans, and did so after decades of attempts to rename the mountain, according to the Washington Post.

The move from America’s first Black president was welcomed by the local Native Alaskans and state elected officials, including Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and was embraced as an important step toward the U.S. correcting historical harms caused to Indigenous populations. However, President-elect Trump said in December that he intends to reverse Obama’s renaming of Mount Denali back to Mount McKinley.

As for “Gulf of America,” though Trump could very well take steps to rename the Gulf of Mexico through the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, a federal interagency, there’s uncertainty as to whether the name change would be uniformly adopted by other countries, as The Washington Post notes.

Only time will tell whether Trump goes through with his proposal; however, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a Trump loyalist, announced she had directed her office to draft legislation to make the president-elect’s plan a reality “as soon” as he mentioned it during his Tuesday press conference.

“The American people are footing the bill to protect and secure the maritime waterways for commerce to be conducted. Our U.S. armed forces protect the area from any military threats from foreign countries,” she said in a statement. “It’s our gulf. The rightful name is the Gulf of America and it’s what the entire world should refer to it as.” 

However serious Trump is about the proposal, the suggestion garnered swift criticism on social media and jokes on late-night television. Some critics argued that American voters elected Trump back to the White House to bring down the cost of living and address the nation’s immigration crisis — not to rename geographical features for the sake of it.

“I have not heard from one working class person who has said “you know, it would make my life better if it was called the Gulf of America,” wrote former Ohio Democratic state Senator Nina Turner on X.

Critics also took umbrage with Trump’s suggestion of annexing Canada and Greenland as U.S. states. Leaders from the North American country and territory have made clear such a suggestion is a non-starter. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there isn’t “a snowball’s chance in hell.”