When Google announced it was complying with US President Donald Trump\u2019s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, many Mexicans responded with a laugh and a long, exhausted sigh. <\/p>\n
At her daily press briefing on Tuesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum largely shrugged off Google\u2019s move, noting that Trump\u2019s order only applies to the US continental shelf, suggesting that her country would not abide by it. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Gulf of Mexico is still the Gulf of Mexico,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Many of her fellow Mexicans have been similarly dismissive. <\/p>\n
On social media, users shared images poking fun at what some called Trump\u2019s \u201cobsession\u201d with their country and the unorthodox nature of his decision. Some soccer fans suggested sarcastically that Trump was paying tribute to the popular Mexican football team, Club Am\u00e9rica. <\/p>\n
But not everyone is laughing. In an editorial for the Mexican newspaper El Universal, legal expert Mario Melgar-Adalid advised the country to push back. <\/p>\n
\u201cMexico must firmly oppose this interference, otherwise the next step could be that instead of the United Mexican States (Mexico\u2019s formal name), as established in our Constitution, they will begin to call us Old Mexico,\u201d he wrote. <\/p>\n
In the Mexican coastal state of Veracruz, which borders the gulf, Governor Roc\u00edo Nahle rejected Trump\u2019s move. \u201cToday and always \u2026 for 500 years it has been and will continue to be our rich and great \u2018Gulf of Mexico,\u2019\u201d the governor wrote on social media last week. <\/p>\n
Juan Cobos, a former resident of Veracruz who now lives in Mexico City, called it \u201cabsurd,\u201d saying hundreds of years of history could not be erased by a pen stroke. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t change something overnight, what we\u2019ve grown up with \u2013 history, geography, all that. You can\u2019t be so authoritarian that you can change it from one day to the next.\u201d <\/p>\n
Google said on Monday its move was in line with its \u201cpractice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.\u201d The company noted that the change would be applied only in the United States. Users in Mexico will continue to see the \u201cGulf of Mexico\u201d on Google Maps. The rest of the world will see both names. <\/p>\n
Trump, in his executive order last week, said he directed that the body of water be renamed the Gulf of America \u201cin recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our nation\u2019s economy and its people.\u201d The order calls for all federal government maps and documents to reflect the change. <\/p>\n
He also ordered that the nation\u2019s highest mountain, Denali, change its name back to Mount McKinley, in honor of President William McKinley. Google said it would also update the name of its maps when the Geographic Names Information System, a government database of names and location data, is updated. <\/p>\n
Sheinbaum responded with ridicule at the time. At a press conference, she presented a 1607 map that labeled parts of North America as \u201cMexican America,\u201d and dryly proposed that the gulf should be renamed as such. <\/p>\n
She said: \u201cIt sounds nice, no?\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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