On Jan. 8, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo clapped back at President Donald Trump’s order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America” in her mañanera, an hour-long daily morning media briefing that speaks directly to the Mexican people in a comprehensible, accessible way. Journalists and reporters alike can ask any question directly to the president, uncensored.
The Sheinbaum administration is not intimidated by Trump’s threats. Sheinbaum has also sent the message that Mexico will defend the human rights of Mexicans in the U.S., who could be facing abuse during Trump’s mass deportations.
“Why don’t we call it America Mexicana? It sounds pretty, no? Right?” she said while smiling at the start of the mañanera that same day. “Since 1607, the Constitution of Apatzingán was from America Mexicana. And the Gulf of Mexico, since 1607, and it’s also recognized internationally.”
She continued: “Also, I think President Trump was misinformed with all due respect, because I think he was informed that in Mexico Felipe Calderon still governed along with García Luna. But no, in Mexico, the people govern.”
For context, Felipe Calderon was president of the National Action Party — the PAN party— from 2006-2012, and his secretary of public security, García Luna, was convicted of accepting bribes from cartels. The PAN and the Institutional Revolutionary Party — the PRI — have also had tendencies in the past to take what is not theirs, like presidencies and large amounts of money. Sheinbaum is demonstrating how her administration will not simply give in to Trump’s.
In the same mañanera, he also asked José Alfonso Suárez del Real, a journalist and politician, to explain the origin of the name of the Gulf of Mexico. “Between Florida and Yucatán, the Mexican Gulf is recognized as a fundamental nautical point for navigation from the 17th century onwards,” he said, and continued to explain that the name “Mexican America” existed much before the first group of British colonists arrived in Jamestown, Virginia. Mind-blowing.
Suarez del Real continued that America Mexicana had been the name of the territory in 1607 on the European map commissioned for the Dutch Indian Eastern Company, based in Amsterdam.
A large part of what is now Southwest and West America was territory under New Spain and later Mexico until the U.S. invaded in 1846 to seek even more land for slavery purposes. Furthermore, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War, expanded U.S. territory and made unkept promises to its new Mexican American citizens. To add insult to injury, they faced racial discrimination and violence.
Sheinbaum’s America Mexicana moment was a great way for Sheinbaum to send a message to Trump: Us Mexicans won’t be pushed around.
