Mexico has sued technology company Google over its decision to update its maps platforms to match President Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Friday.
Sheinbaum told reporters Friday that a suit was filed against Google but did not provide further details, The Associated Press reported.
Google did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
The reported lawsuit makes good on Sheinbaum’s threat from February, shortly after Trump signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico on his first day in office.
Shortly after the order, the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) made the change official, prompting Google Maps to follow suit for U.S. users.
Currently, those in the U.S. only see the label Gulf of America on the map while users in Mexico see the name as Gulf of Mexico. Those elsewhere see the label “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).”
Sheinbaum’s announcement comes one day after House Republicans took the first step in codifying the executive order to rename the body of water. The legislation, titled the Gulf of America Act, cleared the House in a 211-206 vote and now heads to the Senate, where its future looks murky.
At least seven Democrats would need to join all Republicans in supporting the legislation.
Amid the backlash earlier this year, Google maintained it has a long-standing practice of applying name changes when they are updated in official government sources, like the GNIS. In a case where official names vary between nations, Google’s policy states users will see their official local names.
Sheinbaum argues Trump’s executive order only applied to the area of the continental shelf under U.S. control.
“What Google is doing here is changing the name of the continental shelf of Mexico and Cuba, which has nothing to do with Trump’s decree, which applied only to the U.S. continental shelf,” Sheinbaum said in February.
According to Sovereign Limits, a database of international boundaries, the U.S. has control over about 46 percent of the Gulf, while Mexico controls about 49 percent and Cuba about 5 percent.
Mexico’s foreign relations ministry sent letters to Google earlier this year, urging the company not to implement the changes.
In February, Sheinbaum shared Google’s response from its vice president of government affairs and public policy, Cris Turner, who said the company will not change its policy after Trump signed the order, the AP reported.
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