Whatever Trump Promises, The Gulf of Mexico Is Here to Stay

President-elect Donald Trump appears to be serious and determined about his pledge to change the name of “The Gulf of Mexico” to “The Gulf of America”—an unlikely and idiotic switch that would achieve nothing beyond needlessly wounding the pride of our neighbors to the south, and making the United States look childish, bullying and shallow in the eyes of the rest of the world.

For one thing, the Spaniards had established Mexico as a major and thriving colony nearly a hundred years before the British built their very first struggling but permanent settlements (in Jamestown and Plymouth) anywhere in North America.

Moreover, “New Spain” (Mexico) replaced a series of advanced indigenous civilizations (the Olmecs, Maya, Toltecs and Aztec) that flourished more than a millennium before any Europeans arrived anywhere in the Western hemisphere.

In today’s world, what’s been known as “The Gulf of Mexico” for five hundred years now touches the shoreline of seven Mexican states and 1,743 miles (2,805 kilometers) of Mexican coastline. By comparison, this same body of water adjoins five American states (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas) and only 1,680 miles (2,700 km) of the U.S. shore.

This means that by any sane standard—historically or geographically—it makes no sense to force puzzled school children, beleaguered cartographers and addled statesmen to attach a new designation to one of the world’s more celebrated bodies of water. The new Trump administration is scheduled to lose power in 2029. The Gulf of Mexico is here to stay.