President Donald Trump called Google to rename the Atlantic Ocean — at least according to the not always reliable recollection of Donald Trump.
During one of his typical off-script anecdotes while addressing his supporters at a South Carolina rally Wednesday, Trump recalled his attempt to convince the tech titan’s CEO Sundar Pichai to carry out his geographical whim. At the time, renaming the ocean “either Trump or America” was something that Trump said his administration was “seriously” considering.
“I called Google Maps,” Trump told the crowd. “I said, ‘Sundar, I’m thinking of the Atlantic Ocean, can you handle it?’”
Pichai, whom Trump described as “still rattled from the Gulf,” wouldn’t even entertain the idea.
“‘No, no, no, this time I’m not doing it,’” he allegedly told the president. “‘Oceans are different sir,’” he pleaded. “‘They cover really a lot of countries. Please don’t ask us to do that.’”
Trump has exhibited a bizarre — you could say despotic — fixation with overturning the long-accepted name for stuff on the map that, in keeping with his eye for controversy, shares borders with other countries.
After taking office in January 2025, he signed an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” This summer, he sparked a diplomatic crisis with Canada by doing the same to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America.” Earlier this month, he demanded the state of New Mexico be rechristened as, you guessed it, “New America.” His supporters extoll his background as a businessman, and here’s that classic corporate impulse to needlessly rebrand things in full view.
Google’s role in all this can’t be overlooked. It has swiftly complied with both of Trump’s executive orders, and in the case of “Lake America,” did so even before official government map makers did.
Regardless, Google has cast itself as a neutral arbiter, arguing that applying Trump’s new names reflected its policy to adhere to the US Geographic Names Information System. It’s intriguing then, to hear Trump say that Google’s Pichai gave him some pushback, though you almost wish out of morbid curiosity that he didn’t — if only to see the kind of chaos that would unfold.
For now, Trump sounds like he’s given up on the idea.
“Should I pass on?” he asked his supporter. “I think let’s keep it the Atlantic Ocean, right?”
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