President Donald Trump has been promising a flurry of executive action on Day 1, and even as he was being sworn in, there were executive orders already prepared for his signature.
Those orders will end diversity, equity and inclusion funding, crack down on border crossings, ease regulations on oil and natural gas production, and more. Among the orders Trump will sign, is one renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump said during his inaugural address Monday that he would order the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Mount Denali in his first executive orders.
“America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world. A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and we will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley, where it should be and where it belongs,” Trump said.
Earlier this month, Trump floated the idea of renaming the body of water that forms the coastline along five southeastern states, saying he felt “Gulf of America” has a “beautiful ring to it.”
As president, Trump can take the action to rename the body of water, although other countries don’t have to adopt the new name.
It’s his latest suggestion to redraw the map of the Western Hemisphere. Trump has repeatedly referred to Canada as the “51st State,” demanded that Denmark consider ceding Greenland, and called for Panama to return the Panama Canal.
Why is Trump talking about renaming the Gulf of Mexico?
Since his first run for the White House in 2016, Trump has repeatedly clashed with Mexico over a number of issues, including border security and the imposition of tariffs on imported goods. He vowed then to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and make Mexico pay for it. The U.S. ultimately constructed or refurbished about 450 miles of wall during his first term.
The Gulf of Mexico is often referred to as the United States’ “Third Coast” due to its coastline across five southeastern states. Mexicans use a Spanish version of the same name for the gulf: “El Golfo de México.”
Americans and Mexicans diverge on what to call another key body of water, the river that forms the border between Texas and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas. Americans call it the Rio Grande; Mexicans call it the Rio Bravo.
Can Trump change the name of the Gulf of Mexico?
Maybe, but it’s not a unilateral decision, and other countries don’t have to go along.
The International Hydrographic Organization — of which both the United States and Mexico are members — works to ensure all the world’s seas, oceans and navigable waters are surveyed and charted uniformly, and also names some of them. There are instances where countries refer to the same body of water or landmark by different names in their own documentation.
It can be easier when a landmark or body of water is within a country’s boundaries. In 2015, then-President Barack Obama approved an order from the Department of Interior to rename Mount McKinley — the highest peak in North America — to Denali, a move that Trump has also said he will reverse.
How did the Gulf of Mexico get its name?
The body of water has been depicted with that name for more than four centuries, an original determination believed to have been taken from a Native American city of “Mexico.”
Has renaming the Gulf of Mexico come up before?
Yes. In 2012, a member of the Mississippi Legislature proposed a bill to rename portions of the gulf that touch that state’s beaches “Gulf of America,” a move the bill author later referred to as a “joke.” That bill, which was referred to a committee, did not pass.
Two years earlier, comedian Stephen Colbert had joked on his show that, following the massive Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it should be renamed “Gulf of America” because, “We broke it, we bought it.”
from NBC Chicago https://ift.tt/unf0FE4
No comments:
Post a Comment