Gulf of America

QUESTION: Do you not see the arrogance in Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America? This is outrageous.

FJ

ANSWER: Look, I understand people say they are American, meaning they are from the United States. Historically, it was named the Gulf of Mexico because the Spanish owned almost everything from Florida to Texas, except for Louisiana, which Thomas Jefferson purchased from the French. We live in North America, which includes Mexico and Canada, and then there is South America. Technically, renaming the Gulf of Mexico from when it was all Mexico to the Gulf of America is not the Gulf of the United States. It is proper because “America” is not formally the United States of America.

America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer who set forth the then-revolutionary concept that the lands that Christopher Columbus sailed to in 1492 were part of a separate continent. Columbus thought he found India, which is why we call the indigenous people American Indians. To say Trump is being arrogant is questionable. The Gulf of America is probably more accurate since this is all of North America. Calling it the Gulf of the USA or something like that would be arrogant.