As far as British oil giant BP (BP) is concerned, the catastrophic oil spill that tainted Louisiana’s shores more than a decade ago didn’t take place in the Gulf of Mexico.
A Chevron oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana - Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg News
The company is one of several that have embraced President Trump’s official recasting of the more than 400-year-old name. One of Trump’s first acts in office was to sign an executive order renaming the 620,000-square-mile international body of water, which is bounded by the U.S., Mexico and Cuba, as the “Gulf of America.”
On its website and in recent filings, BP refers dozens of times to its drilling operations in the Gulf of America, as well as to the 2010 “Gulf of America oil spill.” Chevron (CVX) and Shell (SHEL) have followed suit, as have Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL), whose maps now feature Trump’s preferred name for U.S. users.
“We’re calling it Gulf of America,” Chevron (CVX) Chief Executive Mike Wirth said in a Jan. 31 conference call with analysts. “That’s the position of the U.S. government now.”
The move speaks to the extraordinary sway Trump holds over some of the largest American corporations. Many business leaders—who for months have worked to ingratiate themselves with the new White House—have been quick to abide by his edicts.
Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico applies to federal publications and communications, not internationally, and private entities are free to stick with the original name. But by adopting the president’s preferred designation, they are signaling a willingness to play along to get along, corporate strategists said.
Mike Wirth, chief executive officer of Chevron - Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg News
“All these companies are very attuned and playing the long-term Washington lobbying game,” said Allen Adamson, a branding expert and co-founder of marketing firm Metaforce.
A spokesperson for BP said that it made the name change to maintain alignment and consistency with the official position of the U.S. government. Chevron said it follows U.S. policy on geographic names.
Google (GOOG) has said it has a longstanding practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources. Apple (AAPL) didn’t respond to a request for comment. A Microsoft (MSFT) spokesperson said that in accordance with established product policies, it is updating Bing Maps to reflect the change.
Consultants for oil producers, many of which operate in the Gulf, say some companies are trying to appease and avoid upsetting their pro-fossil-fuel ally in the Oval Office. Why quibble over a name, the consultants said, when they want the Trump administration to open more federal waters to drilling?
In a conference call last month, Chevron’s Wirth said he expects the Gulf—which he began calling the Gulf of America the day after Trump said he would rename it—to keep pumping oil and gas for years. “There’s a lot of running room out there,” with enough for expansions at existing platforms and new projects, he said.
The oil industry is lobbying the administration to quickly create a new five-year leasing plan that would offer oil companies more auctions of acreage in federal waters.
Some oil companies haven’t made the switch. Exxon Mobil (XOM), Halliburton (HAL) and Murphy Oil (MUR) all called it the Gulf of Mexico in recent conference calls and regulatory filings, before the official change by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. The board ensures uniform geographic usage throughout the federal government.
Trump’s renaming decision has been criticized and mocked at home and abroad. Seventy percent of respondents in a Reuters/Ipsos poll last month said they opposed the move.
But companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft have strong incentives to make the change, corporate strategists said. The tech giants have much to gain—or lose—from Trump’s decisions as the country’s leader, on everything from antitrust policy to deregulation on A.I.
It is unclear whether nonfederal entities will be required to adopt the new epithet, but at least some are likely to follow federal guidance, especially those bordering the Gulf, experts said. Some have proactively started using the new name, including the state of Florida, which used it in an executive order, and Port Fourchon, a major Louisiana seaport, which refers to the new moniker on its website.
Failing to honor Trump’s preference carries risks. On Tuesday, a reporter with the Associated Press was barred from a White House event after the news agency said it would keep calling the gulf by its original name, the AP said.
“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,” the AP said.
The Wall Street Journal has said it would generally stick with the internationally familiar name Gulf of Mexico for now—while acknowledging, as pertinent, the name Gulf of America.
The huge expanse of water has been identified on maps as the Gulf of Mexico since at least the mid-16th century, and is of cultural significance to not just the U.S. but also Cuba and Mexico.
After Trump’s announcement, Mexico’s nationalist President Claudia Sheinbaum jokingly suggested that an area encompassing Mexico and most of the U.S. be called “America Mexicana.” She said the gulf is internationally recognized as the Gulf of Mexico.
It is unclear if Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, for whom America is named, ever sailed directly through the Gulf of Mexico. In his voyages to the new world starting in the late 1400s, Vespucci sailed to Venezuela and Brazil, as well as other parts of South America and the Caribbean.
Some Gulf Coast residents and businesses said they welcomed the change.
“The waters we fish in are in the United States,” said Anthony Theriot, a 49-year-old fisherman in Cameron, La., who voted for Trump. “I always wondered why they called it that anyway,” he said of the Gulf of Mexico.
