The Mexican government has not ruled out filing a civil lawsuit against Google if the tech giant continues labelling the stretch of sea between north-eastern Mexico and the south-eastern United States the “Gulf of America”, according to President Claudia Sheinbaum.
The area, long named across the world as the Gulf of Mexico, has gained a geopolitical spotlight after US President Donald Trump declared he would change the Gulf’s name.
Ms Sheinbaum said in a morning news conference on Thursday that Mr Trump’s decree is restricted to the “continental shelf of the United States” because Mexico still controls much of the Gulf.
“We have sovereignty over our continental shelf,” she said.
“If necessary we will file a civil suit … Our legal area is already looking into what that would mean, but we hope that (Google) reconsiders.”
Ms Sheinbaum also said that despite the fact that her government sent a letter to Google saying that the company was “wrong” and that “the entire Gulf of Mexico cannot be called the Gulf of America,” the company has insisted on maintaining the nomenclature.
It was not immediately clear where such a suit would be filed.
Google reported last month on its X account that it maintains a “long-standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.”
As of Thursday, how the Gulf appeared on Google Maps was dependent on the user’s location and other data.
If a user is located in the United States, the body of water appeared as Gulf of America. If a user was physically in Mexico, it would appear as the Gulf of Mexico. In many other countries across the world it appears as “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).”
Ms Sheinbaum has repeatedly defended the name Gulf of Mexico, saying its use dates to 1607 and is recognised by the United Nations.
Can Trump rename the Gulf of Mexico?
She has also mentioned that, according to the constitution of Apatzingán — the antecedent to Mexico’s first constitution — the North American territory was previously identified as “Mexican America”.
Ms Sheinbaum has used the example to poke fun at Mr Trump and underscore the international implications of changing the Gulf’s name.
In that sense, the Mexican president said that the Mexican government would ask Google to make “Mexican America” pop up on the map when searched.
This is not the first time Mexicans and Americans have disagreed on the names of key geographic areas, such as the border river between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.
Mexico calls it Rio Bravo and for the United States it is the Rio Grande.
Journalists barred from White House events over ‘Gulf of America’ row
This week the White House barred Associated Press reporters from several events — including some in the Oval Office — saying it was because of the news agency’s policy on the name “Gulf of America”.
AP is using “Gulf of Mexico” but also acknowledging Mr Trump’s renaming of it as well, to ensure that names of geographical features are recognisable around the world.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on February 9 declaring the Gulf of Mexico would formally be renamed the ‘Gulf of America’ by his administration. (AP: Ben Curtis)
The news organisation said its reporter was barred from a White House event for the third day straight on Thursday, after being denied access to a news conference with President Donald Trump and visiting Indian leader Narendra Modi.
Editor-in-chief Julie Pace called the decision “a deeply troubling escalation” in the administration’s stance against the agency and a “plain violation” of AP’s protected free speech rights.
“This is now the third day AP reporters have been barred from covering the president … an incredible disservice to the billions of people who rely on The Associated Press for nonpartisan news,” she said in a statement to AFP.
The agency first had a reporter blocked from covering an Oval Office signing on Tuesday, it said, because it did not “align its editorial standards” with Mr Trump’s executive order renaming the body of water.
The reporter for the 180-year-old media organisation was again prevented from attending an Oval Office event on Wednesday — the swearing in of new Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
In a style note last month, AP said Mr Trump’s executive order “only carries authority within the United States.”
Asked about the restriction, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Wednesday that the Trump administration was guarding against media “lies.”
She noted that the US secretary of interior had officially designated the new name, and that Google and Apple had made the changes on their popular map applications used in the United States.
“It is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America. And I’m not sure why news outlets don’t want to call it that, but that is what it is,” Ms Leavitt said.
The White House Correspondents’ Association called AP’s exclusion from the Modi event “outrageous and a deeply disappointing escalation.”
“The attempted government censorship of a free press risks a chilling effect on journalists doing their job without fear or favour on behalf of the American people,” the group’s president Eugene Daniels said in a statement.
“This is a textbook violation of not only the First Amendment, but the president’s own executive order on freedom of speech and ending federal censorship.”
AP/AFP
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Publish date : 2025-02-13 16:19:00
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