The Mexican government has not ruled out filing a civil lawsuit against Google if the tech giant continues labelling the stretch of sea between north-eastern Mexico and the south-eastern United States the “Gulf of America”, according to President Claudia Sheinbaum.
The area, long named across the world as the Gulf of Mexico, has gained a geopolitical spotlight after US President Donald Trump declared he would change the Gulf’s name.
Ms Sheinbaum said in a morning news conference on Thursday that Mr Trump’s decree is restricted to the “continental shelf of the United States” because Mexico still controls much of the Gulf.
“We have sovereignty over our continental shelf,” she said.
Ms Sheinbaum also said that despite the fact that her government sent a letter to Google saying that the company was “wrong” and that “the entire Gulf of Mexico cannot be called the Gulf of America,” the company has insisted on maintaining the nomenclature.
It was not immediately clear where such a suit would be filed.
Google reported last month on its X account that it maintains a “long-standing practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.” (ABC)