January 24, 2025 — President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico has left residents along the Gulf Coast sharply divided. Some say it awakens their pride in the U.S. while others suggest it’s a silly distraction.
The order, which Trump signed Monday night, his first day in office, directs the Secretary of the Interior Department to take all the needed steps to change the name to “Gulf of America” within 30 days.
The order says in part that the Gulf plays “a pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy, and in recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation’s economy and its people, I am directing that it officially be renamed the Gulf of America.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis has already embraced the change. He cited the new name in an executive order earlier this week attributing inclement Winter weather to a “low pressure moving across the Gulf of America.”
Cedar Key, a quaint fishing town in Levy County, is a cluster of islands that extend about three miles into the Gulf of Mexico from Florida’s mainland. One resident for more than a decade, 78-year-old Air Force retiree Thomas McKee, said he sees no reason for changing the name.