With 211 votes in favor and 206 against, the House of Representatives approved on Thursday in Washington a bill to officially change the Gulf name of Mexico for that of Gulf of America in the United States.
This law will apply only in the US territory. Its approval is largely symbolic because other countries have no obligation to use the new name, and it is unlikely to be validated in the Senate, where you need Democratic votes.
Who promoted the change of name of the Gulf of Mexico and why?
The bill was promoted by congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, sympathizer and defender of President Donald Trump, and the objective is to prevent, or at least complicate, that in the future the decision can be revoked.
And although a future president could cancel the decree signed by Trump of a stroke, a law, on the contrary, can only be abolished through a new legislative process.
Opinions divided in Congress on the proposal
Among the congressmen who voted against the Republican Don Bacon, who told CNN that the measure was “childish.”
“We are the United States of America. We are not the Germany of the Kaiser Wilhelm or Napoleon’s France,” were his words.
-Hakeem Jeffries, leader of the Democratic minority in the House of Representatives, was another of those who asked to vote against the approval of said law when considering it ridiculous.
Google and Apple have already applied the change in their maps
However, it should be remembered that for several weeks, the large technological companies Google and Apple decided to change the name on their maps for US users.
Costs of the name of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America
It is estimated that the Government will have to allocate approximately 500 thousand dollars in five years to make the name change in the update in documents and maps, according to data from the Congress Budget Office.
For their part, schools, libraries and other public organizations will have to pay for the expenses of updating their own materials.
When did the proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico begin?
The proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico dates from January 20. When President Donald Trump signed a decree in which he ordered that he be called Gulf of America.
Shortly after, the president of Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum responded ironically with the suggestion that “Mexican America” was renamed to the entire US territory in reference to maps of the seventeenth century, when much of the current American western territory belonged to our country.
