Summary

  • Mexico’s president challenged Google’s decision to recognize Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
  • Mexico doesn’t believe the US has the ability to rename bodies of water outside its jurisdiction, and therefore, Google’s actions are incorrect.
  • Google has yet to officially update the names on Google Maps, as it’s waiting for an update to the US Geographic Names System.

Not even two weeks into the second Trump administration, Google has found itself stuck in a tiff between neighboring countries. After the Maps team announced its intentions to rename the Gulf of Mexico and Denali to the Gulf of America and Mount McKinley, respectively, Mexico is pushing back. In a letter addressed to Google, Mexico’s president is claiming the Maps team is incorrect to rename the Gulf of Mexico for any user, regardless of where they’re physically located.

In a letter issued on Thursday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum claimed Trump’s decision to unilaterally rename the Gulf of Mexico violated the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and therefore, Google’s decision to follow the name change is incorrect. As reported by Reuters, Sheinbaum went a step further, pushing Google to deliver search results for the 17th-century “Mexican America” map displayed in an earlier press conference whenever searching for “Mexican America” (via Android Authority).

At the core of Sheinbaum’s case is the UN treaty, which states the US cannot rename any specific body of water lying outside of its jurisdiction because every individual country’s sovereign territory ends 12 nautical miles off the coast. In other words, Trump is free to rename the coastline extending outside of the continental US, but the body of water remains the “Gulf of Mexico.”

Google Maps hasn’t made its changes official just yet

But they’re still presumably on their way

Google has yet to roll this change out to end users; it’s waiting on the US Geographic Names System to officially update both the Gulf of Mexico and Denali with Trump’s new (or, in Denali’s case, old) names. In the case of the Gulf of Mexico in particular, it’ll only appear to those located within the US as the “Gulf of America.” Google Maps users based in Mexico will still see the Gulf of Mexico, while those outside both of these verbally-sparring nations will see both names.

It’ll likely take a court ruling or a similar action from on high to change Trump’s mind on this subject, but Google doesn’t necessarily need to stick with its initial decision. The Apple Maps team — Google’s biggest rival, at least on iPhones and other iOS devices — have remained silent on their decision to rename the body of water. Currently, searching for the “Gulf of America” brings up no matching results, though that’s technically the case with Google Maps at this moment as well. Both services recognize Denali and Mount McKinley, though only Google manually changes “Mount McKinley” back to Denali at this moment.