President Donald Trump used his first day back in office on January 20, 2025, to revive one of his most symbolic branding fights: who gets to name places on the American map. In a series of executive orders, he directed federal references to the Gulf of Mexico to be changed to the Gulf of America and ordered that Denali, Alaska's highest mountain, return to the name Mount McKinley in federal usage.
The moves were announced as part of a broader opening-day burst of executive action. Trump said during his inaugural remarks that the United States would be restoring the names, framing the changes as part of a larger effort to reassert national pride and status. The executive orders themselves focused on federal references, which matters because that is where the president has the clearest practical reach. Even so, the decision set off an immediate political and cultural argument over how much power the White House has over names that are used well beyond U.S. government documents.
The Gulf of Mexico change is especially complicated. CBS News reported that the move could be applied to federal references, but that other countries would not be required to follow suit. The gulf is a body of water shared by multiple jurisdictions, and international naming conventions are not controlled by the United States alone. That means the order may have a strong domestic effect in federal maps, policy documents and administrative references without changing the everyday vocabulary used by Mexico, other nations or much of the private sector.
The Denali order taps into an even older naming dispute. Alaska's tallest peak was officially renamed Denali by President Barack Obama in 2015, reflecting the traditional Native Alaskan name that had long been used informally in Alaska. Trump’s order sought to restore the Mount McKinley name in federal references. The decision quickly drew criticism from Alaska Republicans who have long treated Denali as the preferred name. CBS quoted Senator Lisa Murkowski as saying she was opposed to restoring Mount McKinley and pointing to the mountain's Native name and long local use.
The two changes also underscore how names can carry politics far beyond geography. In the case of the gulf, the issue touches on international charting, maritime jurisdiction and longstanding conventions used by mapping bodies. CBS noted that the International Hydrographic Organization helps standardize the naming and charting of seas and oceans. That makes the gulf renaming less a simple domestic order than a test of how far American branding can travel in international usage. The same is true, in a different way, of Denali, where the dispute is bound up with historical memory, Indigenous identity and federal recognition.
For Trump, though, the symbolism was likely the point. His team and allies had already been floating the idea before he took office, and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said she would push legislation to formalize the gulf change on federal maps and in administrative policy. Whether those efforts gain traction beyond Washington is another matter. Other nations have no obligation to follow the U.S. lead, and names that exist in international usage can remain stubbornly unchanged even when federal policy shifts.
What the order made clear on January 20 was that Trump intended to put naming politics at the center of his return to power. By targeting two widely known geographic names, he turned a technical issue into a highly visible statement about identity, memory and the federal government's role in defining both.
