Now GOOGLE caves to Trump & renames Gulf of America on Maps in latest victory for Don as tech giants line up behind him
Mexico’s president suggested North America, including the US, be renamed Mexican America
DONALD Trump has notched up yet another victory as now even Google has caved into his demands.
Google Maps will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in line with Trump’s wishes.
Newly-inaugurated President Trump ordered the name change as part of a lengthy list of executive actions hours after taking office on January 20.
Now Google has revealed it will change the ocean basin’s name once it is officially updated in the US Geographic Names System.
The change will be visible in the US, but the name will remain Gulf of Mexico in Mexico.
Outside of the two countries, users will see both names on Google Maps.
It’s yet another win for Trump after Colombia gave in and agreed to accept deported migrants.
The Trump administration’s Interior Department said on Friday it had officially also changed the name of the Alaskan peak Denali, the tallest mountain in North America, to Mount McKinley.
Google Maps, which is owned by Alphabet, will make a similar change to Mount McKinley.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum jokingly suggested earlier this month that North America, including the US, be renamed Mexican America – a historical name used on an early map of the region.
Bordered by the US Gulf Coast, Mexico’s eastern states, and Cuba – the gulf is a key point for fishing, transport, oil, and gas production.
Earlier this month he claimed the name change would be acceptable “because we do most of the work there, and it’s ours.”
Tech giants have been parading around Trump as he settles back into the Oval Office, with Tesla boss Elon Musk heading his DOGE department.
Top tech billionaires Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, Google chief Sundar Pichai, and Musk were pictured together at Trump’s inauguration.
Florida was the first US state to describe the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America in a weather alert last week.
“An area of low pressure moving across the Gulf of America, interacting with Arctic air, will bring widespread impactful winter weather to North Florida,” it read.
And the US Coast Guard did the same in an official press release that referred to “the maritime border between Texas and Mexico in the Gulf of America.”
Google has applied the same locale-based labeling conventions to other locations subject to naming disputes.
Outside of Japan and South Korea, the body of water bordering both nations is listed as the “Sea of Japan (East Sea).”
Trump's executive orders
TRUMP kicked off his second term by starting to give the US a MAGA makeover.
These are some of the executive orders he has already signed:
ON IMMIGRATION
Trump declared an official national emergency at the US-Mexico border – meaning he can use federal funding to build a wall along the boundary without the permission of Congress.
While signing the order, he said “That’s a big one. People have wanted to do this for years.”
He also signed a directive to end birthright citizenship – when a person born on US soil is given American citizenship.
CLIMATE CRUNCH
Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement – just as he did at the beginning of his first term.
He said last Monday: “I’m immediately withdrawing from the one-sided Paris Climate Accord ripoff.
“The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity.”
He also pulled out of the WHO – meaning the organisation will be millions of dollars worse off – and certain global vaccination directives will no longer apply to the US.
TIKTOK PLANS
Social media site TikTok recently came under fire in the US because of its Chinese parent company – ByteDance.
It went offline during a brief ban in America last Sunday – but was back again with a notification thanking “President Trump” for his efforts.
After officially taking office on Monday he signed an executive order to block the ban from taking effect for a further 90 days.
CREATING ‘DOGE’
The infamous Department of Government Efficiency – an apparent brainchild of Trump and his pal tech tycoon Elon Musk – is a long-awaited fixture of the new administration.
Trump officially forged it with an executive order by changing the name of the Digital Service – created in 2014 by Obama – to the “United States DOGE Service.”
The department is set to oversee huge federal budget cuts to reduce “the size and scope of government”.
SECURITY CLEARANCES
Trump also signed two executive orders relating to security clearance levels.
One allows White House employees to obtain top secret levels of clearance without going through the traditional vetting process.
Another removes security clearances for some 51 former intelligence officials who signed a letter saying that a news story about Hunter Biden’s laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
TRANSGENDER RIGHTS & DIVERSITY MEASURES
Trump fulfilled one of his longer campaign promises to curtail the rights of transgender people with an executive order.
The directive said his administration would be sure to use “clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” it read.
“These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
He then signed an order crushing federal programs designed to improve diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace – dubbing them “wasteful, illegal and immoral”.
In 2012, Iran threatened to take legal action against Google over its decision to drop the term “Persian Gulf” from Maps and leave the waterway between Iran and the Arabian peninsula nameless.
The body of water is now labeled “Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf)” in other countries.
It comes as Trump, 78, marches on with delivering promises he made during his campaign.
He swept into his second term as president with a slew of agenda-setting executive orders.
Within hours of being sworn in, he had set the tone for his new administration’s immigration, climate, domestic, and crime agendas.
Trump withdrew from the landmark Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization, axed a whopping 78 Biden-era executive actions, and handed out more than 1,500 pardons.
TikTok, gender debate & JFK truth – the rest of Trump’s to-do list
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
JFK ASSASSINATION
Trump promised to uncover a slew of classified documents on the assassinations of President John F Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy and Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King.
During his first term Trump did release some documents related to the fatal shooting of JFK in Dallas, Texas, 1963.
King and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated in 1968.
“In the coming days, we are going to make public remaining records related to the assassinations of President John F Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, as well as Dr Martin Luther King Jr and other topics of great public interest,” he said the day before his Inauguration.
Trump has not specified what kind of documents he hopes to release, but the JFK assassination in particular has been a long-term source of debate in the US.
A widespread conspiracy theory has suggested the involvement of the federal government or CIA in orchestrating and covering up his death.
TIKTOK BAN
Trump has hit repeatedly hit out at the plans to ban TikTok in the US – a wildly popular social media app with some 170million American users.
After national security concerns tied to its Chinese ownership, the app was briefly shut down across the country.
But mere hours after Trump promised to reinstate it after taking office, American users were able to get back online.
The app “welcomed back” American yesterday, lauding Trump as the reason for its return even before his official return to the Oval Office.
He then extended a 90-day period to keep it running.
GENDER DEBATE
Trump has previously vowed to reinstate a ban on transgender military service – something he brought in during his first term which Biden later axed.
He said at a rally in December: “With the stroke of my pen, on day one, we’re going to stop the transgender lunacy.”
He is also expected to ban transgender women from competing in women’s sports, saying: “And I will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high school.
“And we will keep men out of women’s sports. And that will likewise be done on Day One.”
CLIMATE CRUNCH
Trump has also promised to look at cost of living efforts and visit Los Angeles in the wake of recent devastating wildfires.
And he is expected to overturn President Biden’s climate policies – including on the regulation of pollution or green job efforts.
It could also stretch to a ban on new wind projects or electric vehicle mandates.
He has already pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement – just as he did in 2017, before Biden rejoined in 2021.