Truly the dumbest timeline: Mexican president formally requests Google Maps does not re-name the Gulf of Mexico, jokes about renaming North America 'América Mexicana'
It is one of life's truisms that, whenever you see something and think «this couldn't possibly get any dumber», it will then proceed to astound and amaze you with just how god damn dumb it can get. Today's exhibit A is US President Donald Trump's idea that the Gulf of Mexico, an enormous body of water that borders Cuba, Mexico and the United States, be re-named as the Gulf of America: And signed an executive order in his first week in office to this effect. Priorities, people, priorities!
If you're looking for an actual reason as to why Trump wants to do this, I suggest looking up the theme song of Team America: World Police. «America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on Earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world,» Trump said in his inaugural address on January 20. «A short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.»
This has somewhat inadvertently become a tech story after poor old Google Maps got caught right in the middle. The name change for the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali (another Trump bugbear, he's renamed it Mount McKinley) will be applied once its Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) is updated:
«When official names vary between countries, Maps users see their official local name,» says Google. «Everyone in the rest of the world sees both names. That applies here too.»
Mexico has decided it's had quite enough of this, and now Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has written to Google asking that the firm reconsider its decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico in Google Maps. She argues that the US cannot legally change the entire basin's name because the UN convention on the Law of the Sea says a country's sovereign territory only extends 12 nautical miles out.
"[The name change] could only correspond to the 12 nautical miles away from the coastlines of the United States of America," said Sheinbaum at a press conference showing
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