President Trump Hints At Renaming U.S. State

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— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 6, 2026

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The post comes just days after Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” for U.S. federal use. The executive order followed a series of tariff disputes between Washington and Ottawa.

Trump said he directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the department to update the Geographic Names Information System to reflect the name change. Google and Apple later updated their maps for U.S. users to reflect the change.

Trump also signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” early in his second term.

Unlike lakes and other geographic features that can be renamed for federal use through executive action, a president cannot unilaterally rename a U.S. state. Trump and the White House have not announced any formal effort to change New Mexico’s name.

The name “New Mexico” predates the state by centuries. Spanish explorers began using “Nuevo México” in the late 1500s. The territory kept the name after becoming part of the United States in 1848 and later achieved statehood on Jan. 6, 1912.

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“LAKE AMERICA” – Trump Executive Order Changes Name Of Iconic Lake

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Despite Trump repeatedly suggesting Canada become the nation’s 51st state, he recently told Fox News, “They think they’re a state, but they’re not a state. Why should we be subsidizing Canada?”

Like Trump’s previous name changes on the U.S. map, his latest push to relabel New Mexico is sure to receive a wave of backlash.

The group Republicans Against Trump was quick to post on X following Trump’s suggested name change of New Mexico, writing, “WTF is wrong with him?”

When the president relabeled Lake Ontario, MapQuest refused to change its navigation app, writing on X, “We’re not changing it.”

MapQuest then saw a surge in App Store rankings, with the company’s general manager Doug Berger saying, “We took the same approach we did with the Gulf of Mexico: be part of the conversation, and give people an app that keeps the names they’re familiar with.

“Hundreds of thousands of people signaled to us this weekend that we got it right, by downloading our app.”

But tech giants Apple and Google caved to Trump, switching the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America for U.S. users of their maps apps, just as they did when the president demanded that the Gulf of Mexico be changed to the Gulf of America.

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