Mexico is taking legal action against Google for labeling the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” on its platform for U.S. users, President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed this week. The dispute comes after repeated requests from the Mexican government to reverse the change were allegedly ignored.
“All we want is for the decree issued by the U.S. government to be complied with,” President Sheinbaum said, emphasizing that Washington has no authority to rename the entire gulf, which borders Mexico, the United States, and Cuba.
Sheinbaum said she had sent a formal letter to Google in January asking the tech giant to reconsider the renaming. In February, she warned that legal action could follow if the company did not reverse course.
Google has not commented publicly on the lawsuit. However, the company previously said the change followed “a longstanding practice” of adopting names updated by official government sources. Google clarified that users in Mexico would continue to see “Gulf of Mexico,” while those in the U.S. would see “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).”
The controversy escalated after the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Republicans, voted on Thursday to officially adopt the “Gulf of America” designation for federal agencies. Former President Donald Trump had signed an executive order on his first day back in office in January, asserting the change was warranted because the U.S. “do most of the work there, and it’s ours.”
Despite the U.S. move, Sheinbaum’s government insists Trump’s executive order only applies to the U.S. portion of the continental shelf and does not grant authority to rename the entire body of water.