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The Namer in Chief: Trump & the Persian Gulf [1]

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Date: 2025-05-12

The Namer in Chief: Trump & the Persian Gulf

On January 20, 2025, Trump’s 26th and final Executive Order (EO) of the day was titled “Restoring Names That HonorAmerican Greatness.” In it, he changed the name of Denali—the highest mountain in North America—back to Mt. McKinley. The shift erased a name rich with cultural, historical, and Indigenous significance in favor of one honoring a president who never set foot in Alaska and doesn’t rank among the top ten U.S. presidents. Compared to the powerful, place-rooted name Denali, McKinley sounds pedestrian.

Trump’s imperialistic signaling evokes colonial conquest and cultural dominance. Renaming Denali is not just semantics—it’s a symbolic act of erasure against the Koyukon Athabascans, who have lived with and revered the mountain for over a thousand years. For them, it is Denali, “the High One,” which it is, and Trump isn’t.

Trump can call it whatever he likes .For Alaskans and many Americans, it remains Denali. Alaska officially adopted the name in 1975, and President Obama formalized it federally in 2015. A poll by Alaska Survey Research found that only 26% of Alaskans supported Trump’s reversal. (Source: https://www.juneauempire.com/news/poll-alaskans-oppose-reverting-denali-back-to-mt-mckinley-by-more-than-two-to-one/)

In the same EO, Trump also renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” another ahistorical and geographically dubious move. The first European settlement on the Gulf was Veracruz in 1519, and the U.S. did not acquire any coastal land along the Gulf until Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in 1803, Florida in 1819, and Texas in 1845. Furthermore, Mexico owns about 60% of the Gulf coastline, with the U.S. holding the remaining 40%. If anything, the waters off U.S. shores might reasonably be dubbed the “Bay of America”—but certainly not the entire Gulf.

A Marquette Law School poll found that 71% of Americans oppose renaming the Gulf of Mexico. (Source: https://law.marquette.edu/poll/2025/02/12/new-marquette-law-school-poll-national-survey-finds-public-strongly-favors-some-trump-policies-strongly-opposes-others/) Once again, Trump is out of step with the American public.

Now the Namer-in-Chief is ruffling the water ahead of his first foreign trip beginning on March 13, 2025, apart from the funeral of Pope Francis, to Saudi Arabia, Jared’s $2 billion buddy, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Now, Trump plans to announce while in Saudi Arabia that the U.S. will refer to the Persian Gulf as the “Arabian Gulf” or the “Gulf of Arabia.”

This is a Johnny-come-lately move. Arab states bordering the Gulf began informally calling it the Arabian Gulf between the 1950s and 1970s. However, the name “Persian Gulf” remains the standard recognized by the United Nations, the International Hydrographic Organization, historians, academics, and nearly all global maps. Given the international response to “Gulf-of-America Trump,” his major international announcement will be completely unpersuasive.

Iran, the successor to the ancient civilization of Persia, which dates back 2,500 years, changed its official name in 1935. Notably, Iran was never colonized by European powers, unlike nearly every other Gulf state. Saudi Arabia and Iraq were established as nations in1932; the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait followed in the 1960s and ’70s after periods of British control or protection. Historically, Iran has had the dominant coastline on the Gulf, with about 839 miles, far more than any neighboring country. The term “Persian Gulf” reflects thousands of years of cultural and geographic reality. Trump cannot erase that with a news conference or a post on Truth Social.

Why, then, the sudden push to rename? Favor with oil-rich Arab allies because this trip is as much about personal enrichment as it is about diplomacy. Trump reportedly will have access to a luxury $400 million Boeing 747, which will be gifted from Qatar for use as Air Force One. It’s not hard to imagine him continuing to use it after leavin goffice. Is this a trinket, a bauble, or a bribe?

If Trump’s naming fetish must be indulged, there are better outlets. According to conservationist Joe Quatrini, only 5% of America’s streams are officially named. That leaves 95%—millions of creeks and trickles—unnamed and ready for the taking. (Source:https://www.bccdpa.com/blog/whats-in-a-stream-name?utm_source=chatgpt.com

If he must name something, let him take to the woods and start naming those streams: Trump Creek, Little Trump Branch, Trump Wash, etc. Of course, he would have to physically go to each one, a good use of all of his time for the remainder of his presidency.

Trump’s latest renaming spree is more than symbolic; it is an assertion of power through narrative and geography. But names rooted in culture, history, and truth have staying power. Denali will remain Denali. The Gulf of Mexico will remain the Gulf of Mexico. And the Persian Gulf will remain just that—Persian. No executive order can outlast the force of history, the voices of people, and the weight of place.

Day 113: days left to January 20, 2029: 1,349 days

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/5/12/2321878/-The-Namer-in-Chief-Trump-the-Persian-Gulf?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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