Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has proposed renaming the southern United States “Mexican America” in response to US President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
Sheinbaum made the joke during her daily press conference on Wednesday, referring to how the name appeared on world maps in the 17th century.
She said, “Why don’t we call it Mexican America?” That sounds good, doesn’t it?
The day before, Trump had described his Gulf of America proposal as having “a beautiful ring.”
Until the Mexican-American War in the nineteenth century, current US states like California, Arizona, and Texas belonged to Mexico.
The name Gulf of Mexico has been used to refer to the body of water off the southern coast of the United States and the eastern coast of Mexico since the sixteenth century.
Sheinbaum, a left-wing politician and climate expert, was elected Mexico’s first female president in October.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador, her predecessor and political mentor, served as president from 2017 to 2021, the first term of Trump.
Despite Trump’s threats of punitive tariffs on Mexico and migration tensions, Sheinbaum’s predecessor had a relatively positive relationship with him.
On January 20, Trump will take his second oath of office as president of the United States.
