President Donald Trump on Monday called on New Mexico to change its name to “New America”, posting on Truth Social shortly before leaving the White House for a midterm rally in Kansas. “New Mexico should immediately change its name to New America. We are not Mexico, we are the United States of America!” he wrote. He claimed, without citing any evidence, that “home values and incomes would rise” because of a name change, and repeated his claims about rigged elections in the state, which he lost by 6 points in 2024.
This is not his first renaming push. In September he posted a map of the state with “Mexico” crossed out and “America” written underneath, an image reposted by the White House X account. He signed an executive order in August renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America” amid his trade war with Canada, renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” last year, and has repeatedly floated calling the Strait of Hormuz the “Trump Strait”. CNN reported that while the president can rename geographic landmarks in the federal Geographic Names Information System, he has no constitutional power to rename a state; that process would have to happen within the state itself.
Source: CNN
