Mexico's president considers lawsuit against Google over Gulf of Mexico rebrand

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Google is wrong to label the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America

 At Thursday's morning press conference, she clarified that President Donald Trump’s decree is about the continental shelf that belongs to the United States, which she said is approximately 22 nautical miles.

He can name that “little part,” Sheinbaum asserted. “We do have a dispute with Google.” 

She relayed that Google had responded to a letter and her administration wrote back.  

“If it’s necessary, we can file a civil suit," Sheinbaum said. 

Google “is wrong,” she said. “You can’t call the whole Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America.”  

“We hope there is a revision,” Sheinbaum said. “Even though it’s a private company, it has become an international reference.” 

The U.S. Contiguous Zone is 24 nautical miles from the U.S. baseline, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. 

Trump’s executive order indicates that he renamed “the U.S. continental shelf area bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the State of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba” as the Gulf of America. 

The continental shelf is “a shallow submarine plain of varying width forming a border to a continent and typically ending in a comparatively steep slope to the deep ocean floor” according to Merriam Webster’s dictionary.