Federal Government Renames the Gulf of Mexico

On his first day in office, Trump ordered federal agencies to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America" and to restore the name Mount McKinley for the peak known as Denali.

The order changed official U.S. government nomenclature and terminology used across federal agencies and documents, but it had no legal power to compel international bodies, foreign governments or private mapmakers to adopt the new names. The action became a widely cited example of largely symbolic governance carried out through executive decree, illustrating the gap between what a president can unilaterally rename within federal usage and what can be imposed globally.

The naming directive took effect for federal purposes immediately; available sourcing does not indicate legal challenges to the change.