Donald Trump Renames Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario as Part of Nationalist Initiative

President Donald Trump has issued an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and the border lake Ontario as Lake America. These changes are intended to honor the greatness of the United States and mark the country's dominance. Trump has also suggested renaming the state of New Mexico to New America. These name changes have been implemented in official U.S. documents and appear in Google and Apple map searches conducted within the United States, though they have little reach outside U.S. territory.

These actions coincide with Trump's promotion of the Donroe Doctrine, which is his reinterpretation of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine used to justify U.S. hegemony over the Americas. Recently, the president shared a map on Truth Social depicting the U.S. flag covering Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Greenland, and Iceland.

Historian Daniel Immerwahr of Northwestern University notes that the term America was not always the universal name for the United States. He explains that the shift toward using America occurred during the country's expansion into overseas colonialism, including the acquisition of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. This terminology became more common under leaders like Teddy Roosevelt to align with expansionist goals. While the term is now used almost exclusively by Americans, many other inhabitants of the continent also consider themselves Americans.