Mexico fights to keep 'Gulf of Mexico' on Google Maps. Is Trump erasing history?
Mexico claims the law of UNCLOS which states that a nation's waters extend 12 nautical miles from its coast.
Mexico fights to keep 'Gulf of Mexico' on Google Maps. Is Trump erasing history?
The Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has written a formal letter to Google asking the big tech company to reconsider its decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico. The president argues that under international law (specifically the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS), a country's full sovereign control over its coastal waters only goes up to 12 nautical miles (about 22 kilometres) from its shoreline. This implies that Trump administration or the U.S. cannot legally rename the body of water from “Gulf of Mexico”—which has been used for hundreds of years—to “Gulf of America.” Recall that the newly elected U.S. president Donald Trump signed an executive order to rename the body of water which is bordered by the US, Cuba and Mexico. According to a research by Mainwave , Trump’s “move is part of his executive orders aimed at claiming U.S. sovereignty and heritage”. However, part of the letter Sheinbaum sent to Google reads that “[The name change] could only correspo…
About the author
Temmy Samuel is a seasoned journalist with extensive experience in consumer tech, economy, finance, business, money and politics. Currently, he’s studying Accounting at the Federal University of Oye-Ekiti.
