New Mexico lawmakers are calling on Apple and Google to keep using New Mexico on their map applications rather than President Donald Trump’s suggested name for the state, “New America.”
Unlike other name changes Trump made through executive orders, the president has only floated New Mexico’s name change in social media posts and public comments — but the coalition of New Mexico Democrats are taking what they call Trump’s “threatening” posts seriously.
In a letter sent Thursday, Democratic Sens. Ben Ray Luján and Martin Heinrich and Reps. Teresa Leger Fernández, Melanie Stansbury and Gabe Vasquez urged the tech companies to “publicly commit” to keeping their state’s name unchanged by Sept. 18.
The group’s letter to Apple CEO John Ternus and Google CEO Sundar Pichai beseeched the executives to reject Trump’s recommendation “regardless of what the President posts on social media, what executive order he attempts to issue, or what pressure he puts on your companies.”
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“Let us be clear: the President has no legal authority to rename New Mexico. Our state’s name belongs to the people of New Mexico and is rooted in our history and our Constitution, which clearly states that ‘the name of this state is New Mexico,’” the lawmakers wrote.
Apple and Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Sun.
After Trump posted a series of maps featuring the border state with the name “New America” on Truth Social over the weekend, the president doubled down on the idea in his remarks at the first day of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.
“You have a neighboring state, New Mexico. We think it should be called New America,” Trump told the crowd on Wednesday. “I’ll tell you, the people love the idea.”
When asked if Trump had contacted either company regarding the name change, the White House referred The Sun to his convention comments.
Trump’s comments and posts about renaming New Mexico come amid his continued efforts to retitle other landmarks and bodies of water to reflect what the White House deems “names that honor American greatness.”
Apple and Google have changed the names to reflect Trump’s titles for the Gulf of Mexico to be the “Gulf of America,” Alaska’s Mount Denali to “Mount McKinley” and most recently Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”
In each of those cases, the president issued an executive order requiring the name changes — in contrast to his mere statements and posts floating New Mexico’s potential new name. Trump reportedly pressured Apple to change the name to “Lake America,” and the company quickly acquiesced.
Apple and Google both serve substantial international audiences, and some companies have pushed back on the president’s name changes citing a similar customer base.
The Associated Press adopted the “Mount McKinley” name since it is located within the U.S., but the publication — which publishes a dominant style guide for journalists — rejected Trump’s push to rename the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario because the bodies of water share a border with Mexico and Canada, respectively.
The U.S. has a contentious trade relationship with Mexico and is currently in an all-out trade war with Canada.
New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire also have names referencing a place outside of the U.S. — named after an English leader, county and island off the coast of the country, respectively.
Only New Mexico has received the recent influx of scrutiny from the president.
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