WASHINGTON — President Trump riffed that he considered naming the Gulf of America after himself but opted not too because it wouldn’t “play too well” — but then claimed he was only kidding.
“Now, it’s called the Gulf of America, because of me. One of my little things that I did,” Trump, 79, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “Why is it the Gulf of Mexico when we have 93% of the shoreline?
“I must tell you, I was thinking about calling it the ‘Gulf of Trump’ and I decided not to do it,” he continued. “It was going to be called the Gulf of Trump, and then I said, ‘You know, that’s not going to play too well.’
“You know I’m kidding.”
The US controls about 46% of the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico, according to data from the US Geological Survey.
Trump had taken executive action on his first day back in the White House last year to rename the “Gulf of Mexico” as the “Gulf of America.” The White House also lashed out at the Associated Press for failing to recognize the name change.
The president recently claimed that the US was going to be shipping out “massive” amounts of petroleum products to help countries dealing with the chaos in the Strait of Hormuz, where about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil flows through on an annual basis.
“Massive numbers of completely empty oil tankers, some of the largest anywhere in the World, are heading, right now, to the United States to load up with the best and ‘sweetest’ oil ([and] gas!) anywhere in the World,” Trump announced on Truth Social early Saturday.
“We have more oil than the next two largest oil economies combined – and higher quality. We are waiting for you. Quick turnaround!”
On Sunday, Trump announced a blockade of the critical oil chokepoint in response to Iran claiming to have lost track of the mines there and attempting to charge tolls for passage through the waterway.
Trump previously mused about renaming the Strait of Hormuz after himself or rechristening it the “Strait of America,” The Post previously reported.
In the past, Trump has publicly floated the possibility of naming things after himself, before eventually following through.
Last August, for example, the president remarked that “some people refer to it as the Trump-Kennedy Center, but we’re not prepared to do that quite yet.”
By December, the rebrand was official.
His administration also renamed the US Institute of Peace as the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.
