President-elect Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the U.S. in the coming weeks will be renaming the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America.”
Trump made the announcement during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago while speaking about trade deficits that the U.S. has with its southern neighbor.
“We have a massive deficit with Mexico and we help Mexico a lot,” Trump said. “They’re essentially run by the cartels. And we can’t let that happen. Mexico is really in trouble. A lot of trouble. A very dangerous place.”
Trump said that at a future date, which he said would be “pretty soon,” that his administration will be “changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.”
“The Gulf of America. What a beautiful name!” Trump said. “And it’s appropriate. It’s appropriate.”
Trump said that the U.S. has the right to do it because “we do most of the work there, and it is ours.”
WATCH:
Trump says that the drug cartels run Mexico and that the country is in deep trouble
He also announces that he is changing the name of the “Gulf of Mexico” to the “Gulf of America” pic.twitter.com/bSpmJp5SZY
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) January 7, 2025
Mexico is in a frantic state of preparation for the incoming Trump administration as officials worry Trump could take military action against the country’s notorious drug cartels.
Mexico’s new far-Left president, Claudia Sheinbaum, who blames her country’s problems on the U.S., has tried to calm nerves in her country over the possibility of U.S. military intervention, claiming: “There won’t be an invasion. It’s not going to happen.”
The Wall Street Journal reported that Mexican officials are rushing to gauge just how serious the threat from Trump is, especially considering that two of Trump’s picks for his upcoming administration — Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) for national security adviser and Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense — are proponents of the idea.
Trump indicated on the campaign trail that he would use military action against the drug cartels, who fuel the deaths of north of a hundred thousand Americans per year. He’s also indicated he would use the U.S. Navy to stop fentanyl precursors from arriving in Mexico from China and he would designate the drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO). He’s also threatened steep tariffs if Mexico does not stop the flow of illegal aliens and drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Journal reports that in response to Trump’s threats, Sheinbaum is starting to take action against the Sinaloa cartel, arguably the world’s most powerful drug trafficking organization. Mexican law enforcement has made record seizures of fentanyl from the cartel and she sent her security minister to Sinaloa “to oversee the efforts to take back control of a state where organized crime dominates.”
The country is also setting up an elite unit of security officers, who will be vetted and trained by the U.S. for operations against the cartels in Mexico, the report said.
