Jan. 21 saw President Donald Trump sign an executive order to effectively rename the Gulf of Mexico, a namesake that stood for more than 300 years, to the Gulf of America.
News outlets such as Axios abided by the change and announced that the change would be accepted due to their mostly U.S.-based readership. Google and Apple also changed their world map to recognize the newly minted Gulf of America.
However, the AP said in a statement that “as a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.”
The Trump administration did not take kindly to the statement, and despite the AP being a part of a longstanding 13-person press pool that reports on events in the White House, barred AP reporters from attending multiple events; including executive order signings and a news conference with India’s prime minister. An AP reporter was even denied access to Air Force One.
“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism,” said AP Executive Editor Julie Pace in a Feb. 11 statement. “Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”
In a press briefing on Wednesday, Feb. 12, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “The body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America, and I’m not sure why news outlets don’t want to call it that.”
The retaliatory efforts by the Trump administration come weeks after CNN, The Washington Post, the Hill, and War Zone were removed from Pentagon workspaces.
