Column: The real motive behind Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico to ‘Gulf of America’

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Before President Trump, the most high-profile call to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico came from Stephen Colbert, who joked on his Comedy Central show in 2010 that the body of water should be referred to as the Gulf of America in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill because “we broke it, we bought it.”

Almost 15 years later, it could have been worse: Trump could have decreed the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of MAGA. (Don’t anyone give him any ideas!)

But Trump’s arrival at changing the name to the Gulf of America retains none of the jocular tinge of Colbert’s sarcastic suggestion.

When William Nericcio first heard about Trump’s executive order to do just that, the San Diego State English professor dismissed it as “a big publicity stunt to mask more nefarious stuff.”

It certainly was received that way in the weeks leading up to Inauguration Day, when Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reacted to news of Trump’s plans by suggesting the American Southwest, which belonged to Mexico until the 1848 Mexican-American War, be renamed “América Mexicana.”

The laughs continued as Trump mentioned the Gulf of America during his inaugural address, then signed the change into law along with 25 other executive orders that included a ban on birthright citizenship, withdrawing from the Paris climate accords and ending all federal diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs.

Rebranding the body of water bounded by the U.S., Mexico and Cuba as the Gulf of America — which Trump justified by stating in his order it “has long been an integral asset to our once burgeoning Nation and has remained an indelible part of America” — was seen as a random piffle, namely because cartographers and governments across the world have used “Gulf of Mexico” for nearly 475 years.

But the more that Nericcio thought about a gesture he felt was “straight out of Barnum & Bailey,” the more he began to worry.

He’s the author of “Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the ‘Mexican’ in American,” a hilarious yet insightful 2007 book abut the history of anti-Mexican sentiment in the United States. It tracks the depiction of Mexicans in popular culture through postcards depicting the Mexican Revolution, Hollywood stereotypes, racist songs and more — efforts Nericcio argued have fueled anti-Mexican laws and sentiment in this country for decades.

“The speaking of the Spanish language on Mexican soil can trigger the most jingoistic attitudes,” Nericcio told me, “so why not pave over five centuries of history and call it the Gulf of America?”

He fretted as Trump declared Feb. 9 to be Gulf of America Day, saying it was part of restoring “American pride in the history of American greatness,” and as the U.S. Board on Geographic Names officially complied with Trump’s order and announced all federal agencies were “currently in the process of updating their maps, products, and services to reflect the Gulf of America name change.” Nericcio groaned when the White House blocked Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office in retaliation for the news organization — whose style guide is regarded as the gold standard in American journalism, including by the L.A. Times — announcing they would continue to use “Gulf of Mexico” in its stories while acknowledging Trump’s name change.

But what put the profe in full despair mode was when Apple and Google updated their map services last week so that American users will now see “Gulf of America.” The decision prompted the Mexican government to write a letter to Google stating that “under no circumstance will Mexico accept the renaming of a geographic zone within its own territory and under its jurisdiction,” and threatening a lawsuit.

Nericcio is usually quick to a bon mot, but his worrisome tone when we talked was something I had never heard in the 15 years we’ve known each other.

“We know the history of America is empire, but this is America dropping its pants and showing its empire tattoos,” he said. “It’s bald, naked imperialism, and it’s on the order of Stalin.”

It’s easy to dismiss Nericcio as a wild-eyed academic wokoso, but he’s not wrong at all.

The name change isn’t a punchline or weird Trump quirk a la ketchup on steak or his weak-salsa YMCA dance. It’s indicative of a commander in chief hellbent on continuing his efforts at a modern-day Manifest Destiny against our ultimate frenemy in any way, shape or form. Trump is convinced the American public will largely accept anything he does against Mexico, because guess what? It’s just Mexico.

Critics and supporters have long said to take Trump at his word, and few things have shown this to be truer than his vendetta against against the country of my parents. It was right there in the speech announcing his first successful presidential run a decade ago this June, when he descended down a golden staircase at his Manhattan tower like the decrepit yet all-powerful Padishah Emperor in the “Dune” franchise.

Within the opening three minutes of his speech, Trump uttered the line: “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. … They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

That’s the viral part of his anti-Mexican screed. But there was more.

Trump mentioned Mexico 13 times in that speech, his pronunciation dripping with disdain every time. He promised to build a “great, great wall” to seal it off from us, and labeled our southern neighbor “the new China.” He whined that Mexico is “laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically. They are not our friend, believe me. But they’re killing us economically.” So much bile against our second-largest trading partner and the ancestral country of millions of American citizens — and yet the crowd cheered him on.

Trump has kept to his saber-rattling words. He has never ceased to describe people crossing into this country from Mexico as an “invasion,” and is vowing to severely limit legal migration and deport immigrants in the country without legal documentation in a way this country has never seen. He’s still threatening to impose steep tariffs against Mexico, while his team is salivating at the idea of channeling their inner Gen. Pershing and launching military incursions into the country under the guise of combating drug cartels. Last month, Defense secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News that “all options will be on the table.”

Wiping off the Gulf of Mexico from U.S. maps isn’t a lark; it’s a promise of more to come. It’s a move out of the Latin American strongmen that have long plagued the Western Hemisphere but now have an eager copycat at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

I asked Nericcio to find a silver lining in all this, or at least advice on how to fight back. “We don’t own the engines of legitimacy and power — unfortunately, he does,” Nericcio replied. “We’re speaking in the past tense, Gustavo. It’s done.”

He laid out the following scenario: the next time American schoolchildren have to do a geography assignment involving the Gulf of Mexico, they’ll look up the maps of Google, Apple or websites run by the federal government. “They’ll see Gulf of America and think, ‘Oh, that’s the right answer for my homework because the Internet says so. And voila, you now have a whole generation calling it by a name with no historical basis.”

Nericcio sounded forlorn. “What gets me is the anemic pushback. Anemic. Almost like, ‘Yes, daddy.’ It’s like watching a movie with a supervillain who keeps winning and winning, and I don’t think this one’s going to have a happy ending.”