Google criticised by the Mexican president for agreeing to rename the Gulf of Mexico

After U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the "Gulf of America," Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Thursday that Google was incorrect to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico on its Google Maps platform

Sheinbaum made the case in a letter to Google that the United States cannot unilaterally alter the name of a body of water that it shares with Mexico and Cuba.

The action follows Google's announcement on Monday that, once the U.S. Geographic Names System is formally altered, Google Maps would rename the "Gulf of Mexico" to "Gulf of America" for users in the United States.

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The name will still be "Gulf of Mexico" in Mexico, but the change will be noticeable in the United States. Google Maps will display both names for people outside of the two countries.

According to the DAILY POST, Sheinbaum and Trump have argued about the name change. The Mexican president once joked that if nations were renaming things, maybe North America should be called "Mexican America," after a 1607 map of the region.

Mexico claims that because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that a nation's jurisdictional territory can only extend 12 nautical miles offshore, the United States is legally unable to change the name of the Gulf.

“The name change could only correspond to the 12 nautical miles away from the coastlines of the United States of America,” Sheinbaum said.

She restated that Mexico has requested that the map of Mexican America be shown prominently on Google.

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