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Stupid Fascism: Axios Bows to Trump, Will Call the Gulf Of Mexico the 'Gulf Of America' [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-17
by Mark C. Eades
There is no such thing as the “Gulf of America.” The Gulf of Mexico is an international body of water that borders parts of three countries — the United States, Mexico, and Cuba — and doesn’t belong exclusively to any of those three including the United States. It has been called the Gulf of Mexico for nearly five centuries; and this is the name recognized by people throughout the world except for a small number of morons in the United States, including the moron who currently occupies the Oval Office. Now news website Axios has decided to join the morons, and will refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
When Moron-in-Chief Donald Trump announced that he would rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” he claimed of the Gulf that “it’s ours.” This — obviously to anyone who is not a moron — is not true. The Gulf of Mexico is not “ours,” unless by “ours” you are referring to the people of the world. Like all countries that have coastlines, all three of the countries that border the Gulf have territorial waters that extend twelve nautical miles out from their respective coastlines. Outside the twelve-mile limits of these three countries, the waters of the Gulf are international waters. Even as Trump announced his stupid executive order renaming the Gulf while aboard Air Force One flying over the Gulf, the pilot could be heard announcing that “Air Force One is currently in international waters.”
U.S., Mexican, and Cuban Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) in the Gulf of Mexico.
Beyond its twelve-mile territorial waters, each of these three countries also has an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ} in the Gulf that borders the EEZs of the other two. A country’s EEZs, however, are not that country’s territorial waters. Within a country’s EEZs, that country has the exclusive right to extract resources — oil, natural gas, fish, etc. — from beneath the surface of the water. For all other purposes, EEZs are international waters. The United States has an EEZ in the northern Gulf, with a border stretching across the Gulf roughly between the southern tip of Texas and the southern tip of Florida. Bordering the U.S. EEZ to the south are Mexico’s and Cuba’s EEZs. Mexico’s EEZ in the Gulf is, in fact, larger than the U.S. EEZ, giving Mexico a greater claim on the Gulf than the United States has (another good reason to just keep calling it the Gulf of Mexico).
The International Hydrographic Organization — which charts and standardizes the recognized names and boundaries of the world’s international waters, and of which the United States has been a member since its founding in 1921 — recognizes “Gulf of Mexico” as the only official name of this body of water. If demented Donald Trump and his equally demented cult followers want to call it the “Gulf of America,” they have as much right to do that as everyone has to do things that are stupid, but they shouldn’t expect non-stupid people to take them seriously.
After Trump banned the Associated Press (AP) from the Oval Office and Air Force One for AP’s insistence on referring to the Gulf of Mexico by its proper name, Axios stupidly decided that it would be in its own best interests to bow to Trump and refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” Stupidly again, in its eX-Twitter post on the matter, Axios said that the Gulf was “renamed by the U.S.” The U.S. didn’t rename the Gulf of Mexico: Trump and his cult followers renamed it in their own addled brains. To the rest of the world — including non-stupid Americans — it’s still the Gulf of Mexico. When the Age of Trump has passed, his stupid executive order and the “Gulf of America” will be swept aside, joining “Freedom Fries” in the dustbin of history where they belong; and future students of U.S. history will be forced to learn yet another example of just how stupid Americans can be.
Calling the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” is stupid, and I hope that the people at Axios feel as stupid as they deserve to feel each time they do this. In a few months it will be hurricane season. I don’t wish hurricanes on anyone, but on the people at Axios I do wish having to feel stupid every time they report on a hurricane, an oil spill, or anything else that happens in the “Gulf of America.”
I for one will boycott any news outlet that bows to Trump on any issue, including the stupidly manufactured issue of what to call the Gulf of Mexico. Now I will also boycott Axios, and I hope that others will do likewise (In truth, I’ve never read Axios much anyway, so for me it won’t be much of a boycott). Each page view by a user on a news website generates ad revenue, and I don’t want to help generate ad revenue for any news outlet that bows to Trump.
If news media bowing to the whims of an authoritarian leader is a sign of creeping fascism, news media calling the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” is just stupid fascism.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/17/2304264/-Stupid-Fascism-Axios-Bows-to-Trump-Will-Call-the-Gulf-Of-Mexico-the-Gulf-Of-America?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
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