A day after Donald Trump announced his intention to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, President Claudia Sheinbaum proposed calling the United States — or at least the country’s southwest — “Mexican America.”
“Why don’t we call [the United States] Mexican America, it sounds nice, right?” Sheinbaum said at her Wednesday morning press conference.
Wowww ‼️ Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responds to Trump on his proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico — and points to a 17th century map of greater México.
“We are going to call it América Mexicana. It sounds pretty, no?”
— David Adler (@davidrkadler) January 8, 2025
“It does, doesn’t it?” the president added with a smile.
She noted that the Constitution of Apatzingán, which was created during the Mexican War of Independence, referred to territory now known as the United States as Mexican America.
At the time of the document’s creation in 1814, large parts of what is now the southwestern United States were still under Spanish control. Mexico, when it became an independent country in 1821, was much larger than it is today, as its territory included all or part of several modern-day U.S. states.
“The Constitution of Apatzingán was of Mexican America. So we’re going to call it Mexican America,” Sheinbaum said, as she gestured toward an old map showing modern-day United States territory referred to as Mexican America.
“It sounds nice, right?” she said again, riffing on Trump’s declaration that the name “the Gulf of America” has a “beautiful ring to it.”
The name ‘Gulf of Mexico’ is internationally recognized, Sheinbaum says
“Obviously the name ‘Gulf of Mexico’ is recognized by the United Nations,” Sheinbaum told reporters.
She later said that the Gulf of Mexico has been known as such since at least 1607.
“In addition, it’s recognized internationally,” Sheinbaum said.
During a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday, Trump said that the Gulf of Mexico is “ours” and asserted that the United States does “most of the work there.”
“… We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. That covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name, and it’s appropriate, it’s appropriate,” the U.S. president-elect said.
Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard dismissed the possibility that the name of the body of water could be or would be changed, telling reporters on Monday that the Gulf of Mexico will continue to be called the Gulf of Mexico for at least the next 30 years.
President asserts Trump is misinformed about the power of Mexican cartels
At his Tuesday press conference, Trump also said that Mexico is “essentially run by the cartels.”
On Wednesday, Sheinbaum claimed that the former and future U.S. president has been “misinformed” about the situation in Mexico, saying that she believed he has been told that former president Felipe Calderón and his erstwhile security minister Genaro García Luna were still governing the country.
“But no; in Mexico, the people rule,” she said.
García Luna, federal security minister between 2006 and 2012, was sentenced to just over 38 years in prison in the United States last October after he was convicted in February 2023 of colluding with the Sinaloa Cartel.
Sheinbaum said in October that Calderón “should apologize” for having had a now-convicted and sentenced criminal as his security minister. The ex-president has denied he had any knowledge of García Luna’s illicit activities.
Trump has indicated that he is open to the possibility of using the United States military to combat Mexican cartels in Mexico, the source of much of the illicit fentanyl and other drugs that are consumed in the U.S.
In 2021, then-commander of the United States Northern Command, Glen D. VanHerck, claimed that criminal organizations controlled “ungoverned areas” that accounted for about one-third of Mexico’s territory.
Former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador rejected the assertion.
Will Mexico have a good relationship with the US during Trump’s second term? Sheinbaum believes so
Despite Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on Mexican exports to the United States, and disparaging remarks he has made about Mexico and Mexicans, Sheinbaum has reiterated her belief that Mexico will have a good relationship with the U.S. during the second Trump administration.
“I continue to think there will be good relations with President Trump,” she said Wednesday.
“What do I base [my belief] on? Well, there were good relations with president López Obrador and there has to be a relationship of mutual respect, of collaboration, not of subordination,” Sheinbaum said.
Mexico News Daily
Source: Mexico News Daily
