Trump suggests renaming New Mexico to ‘New America’ on Truth Social

### **Trump Suggests Renaming New Mexico as ‘New America’**

President Donald Trump has sparked fresh controversy after suggesting that the U.S. state of New Mexico should be renamed “New America” in a social media post that was later reshared by the White House.

Trump posted an image on Truth Social showing the outline of New Mexico, with the word “Mexico” crossed out in red and replaced with “America.” The post contained no explanation or additional context about the proposed name change.

The suggestion comes shortly after Trump pursued changes to the names of major geographic landmarks. In August, he signed an executive order directing federal agencies to refer to Lake Ontario as “Lake America” in official documents and maps.

The move followed Trump's earlier decision to change the federal designation of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” and his effort to restore the name Mount McKinley for the mountain widely known as Denali.

Unlike geographic features under federal jurisdiction, however, states cannot simply be renamed through a presidential order. According to CNN, while the president can direct federal agencies regarding names included in the Geographic Names Information System, changing the legal name of a state would require a constitutional process beyond presidential authority.

The proposal immediately drew criticism from New Mexico officials and Democratic lawmakers.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham dismissed the idea, arguing that the state's name was not open for debate. She also accused Trump of using the post as a distraction from other issues facing the country.

“New Mexico’s name isn’t up for debate,” Lujan Grisham said in a post on X, while pointing to rising gasoline prices and the administration's foreign-policy agenda.

Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich also rejected the proposal, saying he would continue to use the existing names of several geographic locations.

“Three things I will always call by their actual names,” Heinrich wrote, referring to the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Ontario and New Mexico.

The debate also highlights the long history behind New Mexico's name. According to a Bureau of Indian Affairs fact sheet on the origins of state names, the name dates to the 16th century, centuries before the United States was established.

Trump's latest proposal is consistent with his broader interest in changing the names of prominent American geographic features.

His push to rename Lake Ontario came during heightened trade tensions between the United States and Canada. The president has also previously floated the possibility of changing the name of one or both oceans bordering the United States.

Following the Lake Ontario announcement, Trump suggested that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans could potentially receive new names as well.

“We have a gulf and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean,” Trump said at the time, raising the possibility of renaming either the Atlantic or Pacific, or potentially both.

The proposal to call New Mexico “New America,” however, faces a fundamentally different legal hurdle because the name of a state is not controlled solely by the federal government.

For now, the state's official name remains New Mexico, and Trump's social media post does not itself change its legal status.

The episode nevertheless adds another chapter to Trump's ongoing campaign to reshape how certain geographic names are used in federal communications, while generating a new political debate over the limits of presidential authority and the historical identity attached to American places.