Donald Trump has renamed a gulf, a mountain and, as of this summer, one of the Great Lakes, at least as far as the federal government and the US version of Google Maps are concerned. On Monday he aimed higher: an entire state. “New Mexico should immediately change its name to New America. We are not Mexico, we are the United States of America!” the president wrote on Truth Social on October 19. The difference this time is that no executive order, federal database or map provider can actually make it happen.
As UNILAD Tech reports, the post has revived questions about how Google, Apple and other mapping companies would respond, given how quickly they adopted “Gulf of America” in 2025 and “Lake America” in August 2026. The short answer is that a state’s name is not a federal geographic label, and the machinery the tech giants have followed so far simply does not apply here.
The short version
- Trump posted on October 19 that New Mexico should “immediately” become “New America,” claiming home values and incomes would rise.
- New Mexico’s name is written into Article I of its state constitution, so changing it would take a constitutional amendment approved by the state’s voters.
- Google and Apple renamed the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario for US users only after the federal Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) changed. No federal database can rename a state.
- New Mexico’s congressional delegation asked Apple and Google in September to commit publicly to keeping the name. Neither company has announced a change.
What Trump actually posted
Monday’s post was the latest in a campaign that began in early September, when Trump shared an AI-generated image of himself slapping a “New America” sticker over a “Welcome to New Mexico” sign. “Many people suggested changing the name of New Mexico, one of the great vote cheating states of all time, to NEW AMERICA,” he wrote then, according to NBC News. He also raised the idea at the RNC Midterm Convention on September 9, The Hill reported.
The October 19 version went further, framing the change as an economic upgrade. “Home Values and Incomes would rise, and you would be even prouder while saluting our beautiful American Flag!” Trump wrote, before closing with: “Maybe even the Crooked Elections, that New Mexico is known for, would become honest again!” He offered no evidence for either claim. New Mexico has voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 2008, including Trump’s three runs.
New Mexico’s leaders say no
The pushback from the state has been close to unanimous. Sen. Ben Ray Luján said: “New Mexico’s name dates back hundreds of years, long before the United States even existed. It carries generations of history, culture, and rich traditions that continue to shape who we are. We are New Mexicans. We’re proud of our name, proud of our home, and we’re keeping both.”
Deb Haaland, the former Interior Secretary and Democratic nominee for governor, said the president “should be focused on ending this war, stopping these tariffs, and making things less expensive” rather than renaming the state. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is term limited, wrote on X that “New Mexico’s name isn’t up for debate,” adding that “it’s been ours since before the United States existed.”
It is not only Democrats. Gregg Hull, Haaland’s Republican opponent in the November governor’s race, said in a statement that “New Mexico does not need a new name,” arguing that the state’s identity “is not up for negotiation.”
Why a state is not a gulf
The previous renamings all followed the same playbook. Executive Order 14172, signed on January 20, 2025, directed the Interior Department to rename the Gulf of Mexico and Denali in the federal government’s naming database. Once the GNIS was updated, Google switched US users to “Gulf of America” on February 10, 2025, and Apple followed a day later. The Associated Press, which kept “Gulf of Mexico” in its style guidance, was barred from Oval Office events in response.
Lake Ontario went the same way. Trump signed an executive order on August 27, 2026, telling Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to update the GNIS. Google rolled out “Lake America” for US users on August 29, saying, according to CBS News, that its maps are updated “to reflect name changes in official government sources.” Apple made the same change on September 1, Reuters reported via NBC News, after Burgum said Trump had personally asked Apple to do so.
That chain breaks for New Mexico. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names exists to standardize names of natural and some human-made features for federal use. States, counties and cities are “civil” entries, which USGS maintains in GNIS under an agreement with the Census Bureau, and their names come from the governments that legally created them. New Mexico’s own constitution opens with the line “The name of this state is New Mexico,” so changing it would require the Legislature to propose an amendment and a majority of the state’s voters to approve it. The Hill notes it would probably involve Congress as well, since the state was admitted to the Union under that name in 1912.
There is a modern precedent for the state route. In 2020, Rhode Island voters approved a constitutional amendment dropping “and Providence Plantations” from the state’s official name. No federal agency was involved, and map providers simply updated their labels to match.
How each map provider has played it so far
Google’s policy has been consistent: it applies name changes “when they are updated in official government sources,” and for bodies of water that are named differently in different countries, it localizes the label. That is why US users see “Gulf of America,” Mexican users see “Gulf of Mexico,” and everyone else sees both. Mexico sued Google over that labeling in May 2025, with President Claudia Sheinbaum arguing the new name should only apply to the US portion of the gulf. Apple uses a similar split view.
MapQuest went the other way. It kept the traditional names, built a tongue-in-cheek renaming tool in February 2025 in response to the Gulf order, and extended it to Lake Ontario this summer. After the Lake America order, MapQuest hit No. 1 in the Navigation category and No. 8 among all free apps in the US App Store as of August 30, according to the company. (MapQuest has been in the news for other reasons too: it now shows Flock license plate reader cameras as a map layer.)
| Proposed name | Who decides | Google Maps (US) | Apple Maps (US) | MapQuest |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gulf of America | Federal naming (GNIS, via EO 14172) | Changed Feb. 10, 2025 | Changed Feb. 11, 2025 | Kept Gulf of Mexico |
| Mount McKinley | Federal naming (GNIS) | Changed | Not confirmed | Not confirmed |
| Lake America | Federal naming (GNIS, Aug. 2026 order) | Changed Aug. 29, 2026 | Changed Sept. 1, 2026 | Kept Lake Ontario |
| Ocean of the Americas | No mechanism; international waters | No change | No change | No change |
| New America | New Mexico voters (state constitution) | No change | No change | No change |
New Mexico’s five-member congressional delegation is not taking the companies’ neutrality for granted. On September 10, Sens. Luján and Martin Heinrich and Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández, Melanie Stansbury and Gabe Vasquez wrote to Apple CEO John Ternus and Google CEO Sundar Pichai asking for a public commitment, by September 18, to keep “New Mexico” on their maps. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time President Trump has attempted to unilaterally rename a place,” the letter said. “In each case, your companies soon updated your mapping services to reflect the President’s whims.” Neither company has publicly answered, according to coverage reviewed by GeekBlog.
A name older than the country it supposedly copies
Part of the local frustration is historical. The name “Nuevo México” was used by Spanish explorers in the 1560s, after Francisco de Ibarra’s expedition, and became official when Juan de Oñate established the province in 1598. The Mexico it referenced was the Valley of Mexico and the old Aztec capital, not the modern country, which did not gain independence until 1821. New Mexico became the 47th state on January 6, 1912.
The state has long dealt with being mistaken for a foreign country. Since the late 1960s, its license plates have carried “New Mexico USA,” making it the only state to put “USA” on its plates, specifically to avoid that confusion.
What would actually change on your phone
For now, nothing. If New Mexico’s voters ever did amend the constitution, the change would flow through the Census Bureau’s records and into GNIS like any other legal update, and Google and Apple would almost certainly follow, much as they did after Rhode Island’s vote. Until then, a “New America” label would mean a map provider choosing to depart from its own stated rule of following official sources, which is the opposite of the defense both companies used for the Gulf and the lake.
That is also why this request is different from Trump’s suggestion to rename an ocean. An ocean has no single owner. A state does, and in this case its voters, senators, governor and both candidates to succeed her have all said the same thing: the name stays.
Sources and further reading
- UNILAD Tech: Trump demands New Mexico be renamed ‘immediately’, triggering chaos for Google and Apple
- The Hill: Trump calls on New Mexico to change its name to ‘New America’
- NBC News: New Mexico Democrats push back over Trump posts about renaming the state
- Sen. Ben Ray Luján: N.M. delegation calls on Apple, Google to keep New Mexico’s name
- Albuquerque Journal: New Mexico delegation urges Google, Apple to reject ‘New America’ map name
- CBS News: Google updates maps to show “Lake America” in U.S.
- NBC News (Reuters): Apple Maps changes name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America”
- TechCrunch: Apple Maps plans to show ‘Gulf of America,’ following Google
- CBS News: Mexico sues Google over Gulf of America label
- Business Wire: MapQuest surges to No. 1 in the Apple App Store
- TIME: Trump floats renaming Atlantic or Pacific Ocean
- Source NM: New Mexico officials reject Trump post proposing state name change
- Lead Stories: Fact check on the fake 2025 New Mexico rename post
- USGS: U.S. Board on Geographic Names FAQs
- Wikipedia: Vehicle registration plates of New Mexico
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