Even before President Trump had taken any action to rename the body of water, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis reportedly issued an administrative order on Monday that referred to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
This was done in a state executive order.
While Mr. Trump had promised during his inauguration address that one of his first actions in the White House would be to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, he has not yet taken action on the vow.
When Mr. DeSantis attended the inauguration on Monday, he sat in the overflow area at Emancipation Hall, where he watched the events on a television screen together with other Republican governors.
However, for Mr. DeSantis it was all serious business.
In an early act of self-implementation that appeared to be symptomatic of how Republicans who are seeking to impress Mr. Trump may operate as he defines his program, he did not wait for Mr. Trump to take any presidential action before moving forward on his own behalf.
During the process of declaring a state of emergency in his state, Governor DeSantis complied with President Trump’s request by using his official wording for the ‘Gulf of America’ in an executive order that warned of a winter storm that was forming and was headed for the Florida Panhandle.
“WHEREAS, an area of low pressure moving across the Gulf of America, interacting with Arctic air, will bring widespread impactful winter weather to North Florida beginning Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025,” DeSantis noted in the statement.
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