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US President Donald Trump has claimed that he personally called Google Maps and asked it to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, boasting that the company did what he said because it respected him.
"I changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico. I called up Google Maps and said, 'Please do this.' They do what I say because they respect it. And they changed it. We did all the papers, everything else," Trump said at a rally in Arizona on Wednesday.
Trump was referring to the renaming he initiated shortly after returning to the White House for a second term in January 2025. Google had said it changed the name on its maps after the US government officially updated its geographic names database to reflect Trump's order.
On January 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled 'Restoring Names That Honour American Greatness', directing the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America for official US purposes. The renaming was subsequently formalised through the US Interior Department.
On February 7, 2025, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order directing the US Board on Geographic Names to implement the change. The US Geological Survey then updated its Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), the official database used by federal agencies for geographic names.
Google had said it updated Maps after the new name appeared in that database, in line with its longstanding practice of reflecting official government designations.
Google Maps and Apple Maps subsequently adopted Gulf of America, although the label displayed depends on the user's location. In the US, Google Maps displays Gulf of America, while users in Mexico continue to see Gulf of Mexico. In other countries, including India, Google Maps displays both names.
Apple Maps also adopted the Gulf of America label following the US government's change.
However, the change does not mean the US has established a universally accepted international name for the water body, which borders the US, Mexico and Cuba. Trump's executive order directs US agencies to use Gulf of America for the specified area under US jurisdiction; it does not compel Mexico or other countries to adopt the new name.
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