Google Maps has started a turf war between the US and Mexico with its recent change

Google Maps recently announced that it will rename “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America” on its service, following orders issued by returning US President Donald Trump. Google said that the ocean basin will show up as the Gulf of America on Google Maps in the US and as the Gulf of Mexico to users in Mexico. Outside of the two countries, Google Maps will display both names for the area.

Now, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has said that Google was wrong to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

On Thursday, Sheinbaum presented a letter in a press conference, wherein the Mexican government argues that the US cannot unilaterally change the name of the Gulf of Mexico and that Google should not have followed the directive.

Mexico asserted that the US doesn’t have the legal authority to rename the area, citing a United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which states that a country’s sovereignty extends only up to 12 nautical miles (approximately 22 kilometers) from its coastline.

“(The name change) could only correspond to the 12 nautical miles away from the coastlines of the United States of America,” Sheinbaum said as she presented the letter.

She also urged Google to prominently display the map of Mexican America. “We ask that when you put Mexican America in the search engine, the map appears that we presented,” she said.

Google’s quick bow to Trump’s executive orders has been under a public lens, with users criticizing the company for being too quick to take orders from the US government. However, Google argues that it has had a longstanding practice of renaming locations based on official name changes announced by countries.