On October 21 local time, U.S. President Donald Trump mentioned again the idea of renaming certain waters during a campaign rally in South Carolina. He claimed that he had contacted Google Maps about this matter, but Google's CEO Sundar Pichai did not agree to the proposal.
Trump said that he carefully considered the Atlantic Ocean, and then called Pichai. “I said, ‘Sundar, I’m considering renaming the Atlantic Ocean. Can you handle it?’ He replied, ‘No, no, I won’t do this this time. The ocean is different. It covers many countries. Please don’t let us do such a thing.’ So maybe I’ll have to give up. Let’s just keep the name ‘Atlantic Ocean’.
He continued to boast, “As for the Pacific Ocean, we should rename it the American Ocean. What do you think Europeans would think? Would they like it? Europeans might be overjoyed, and Ursula (the European Commission President von der Leyen) might call and say ‘Thank you very much’.”
Trump Attending Campaign Event in South Carolina, USA – Video Screenshot
This is not the first time Trump has claimed he wants to rename the ocean. On October 10, while attending a rally in Tennessee, Trump said, "We have bays, we have beautiful lakes. Now some people say we need a river too. I don't want to change the name of the Hudson River; that would be too much. So, we need a river, we need an ocean."
At that time, Trump said, “So I think it should be either the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean. We could name it ‘Trump Ocean’ or something like that.”
Trump plans to rename the Gulf of Mexico as "United States Bay" in 2025. Google Maps will follow suit, displaying "United States Bay" for users in the United States, the Gulf of Mexico as "Gulf of Mexico," and both names for users in other regions.
In August 2026, Trump announced that Lake Ontario would be renamed “Lake America”. Google Maps also took a similar approach, with users in the United States seeing “Lake America”, while users in Canada continued to see “Lake Ontario”. Users in regions outside of the United States would see both names.
