Trump says he will change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. Can he do that?

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he would move to try to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” a name he said has a “beautiful ring to it.” It’s his latest suggestion to redraw the map of the Western Hemisphere. The Gulf of Mexico is often referred to as the United States’ “Third Coast” due to its coastline across five Southeastern states. Just after Trump’s comments on Tuesday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said during an interview with podcaster Benny Johnson that she would direct her staff to draft legislation to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico, a move she said would take care of funding for new maps and administrative policy materials throughout the federal government. 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.” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s response Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum responded sarcastically on Wednesday to Trump’s proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.