In the hours after Donald Trump declared he’d rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” one federal official remarked to some co-workers that things were about to get busy.
“Where’s that ‘it has begun’ meme from Lord of the Rings...?” an unidentified U.S. Geological Survey employee wrote on Jan. 7 to several government officials, including those at the State Department and Library of Congress.
“Yes, indeed,” replied Michael Tischler, director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s National Geospatial Program. “Lots of churn from Denali to the Gulf of Mexico.”
Tischler and his colleague were correct: Almost immediately, news reporters flooded the agency — which oversees the nation’s geographic names — with inquiries in an attempt to make sense of Trump’s pledge.
“We’d like to understand the process, whether this is possible, and how it might work,” Brandon Drenon of the BBC inquired shortly after Trump’s comments.
“What’s the process for renaming a foreign name or international name like the Gulf of Mexico?” reporter Maegan Vazquez of The Washington Post wrote in soon after.
The inquiries prompted a running debate among agency leaders and even United Nations officials over how to respond to the journalists — or if they should ignore their questions entirely, according to 141 pages of internal agency emails and records obtained this month by NOTUS via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Ultimately, USGS officials chose the latter path: The internal records indicate the USGS instituted a de facto media blackout during the waning days of the Biden administration despite white-hot public interest about the potential name change for one of North America’s most notable bodies of water.
The records build upon an earlier tranche USGS released to NOTUS in March, which detailed how government officials worked to keep secret a failed effort from 2006 — 19 years before Trump’s proposal — to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
“Uhoh... sounds like this one may eat our lunch this week,” a USGS staffer identified as “Andy” wrote several top officials on Jan. 7 as press inquiries mounted.
“I can’t stay on top of this AND do my day job,” Board of Geographic Names researcher Matthew O’Donnell wrote in an email to Tischler and Shellie Zahniser, executive secretary of the USGS Board of Geographic Names’ Domestic Names Committee.
“Unfortunately, it may get worse before it gets better,” Tischler replied.
Internally, confusion reigned at the USGS in the hours after Trump’s Gulf of America announcement. Staffers appeared to have similar questions to the press.
Tischler, for one, wondered aloud to colleagues about whether renaming the Gulf would “put us in a “‘Sea of Japan’ scenario,” referencing a dispute among Japan, South Korea and North Korea regarding the large body of water that touches each of their borders.
After consulting with Rachel Pawlitz, the USGS’ then-chief public affairs officer, Tischler informed key USGS officials that the agency’s communications office “has instructed us to not respond” to media requests.
“I don’t mean ‘...has no comment at this time…,’ I mean do not respond at all,” Tischler wrote during late afternoon Jan. 7.
But the situation quickly spilled beyond U.S. borders.
On Jan. 9, Washington Times reporter Seth McLaughlin sent an email to the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names.
“What would have to happen for the rest of the world to accept the change?” McLaughlin asked.
This triggered a flurry of back-and-forth messages among associates of the international entity and USGS officials.
“UNGEGN has to reply and do it as simply as possible. This is especially so, considering the political inclination of this media house, the Washington Times,” wrote Sungjae Choo, a South Korean and vice chair of the UN group, to Tischler and other UN group members.
“Sincerely, I think the less we say, the better, to avoid further inquiries,” wrote Ana Cristina da Rocha Berenger Resende, a Brazilian and member of the UN group.
“UNGEGN should not respond,” wrote Wendy Shaw, a New Zealander and another UN group vice chair.
Shaw suggested some language if the UN group decided it must respond to press inquiries, in part noting that “UNGEGN does not adjudicate on geographical name proposals” and that “national naming authorities have the responsibility for processing and deciding on geographical name proposals.”
The proposed statement added: “Should the US President proceed without following a proper consultative process … then the international community would likely continue using Gulf of Mexico.”
It does not appear, however, that the UN group, which did not respond to messages, ever released this statement publicly.
“My home agency (USGS) has provided guidance that BGN staff (including me) are not to respond at this time to media inquiries,” Tischler advised UN group members. “As you might guess, we have received a few questions from high-profile media outlets. But, we are currently not providing a response of any kind.”
McLaughlin of the Washington Times and the BBC did not respond to messages, and Washington Post spokesperson Liza Pluto said the newspaper declined to comment about its “Gulf of America”-related interaction with the USGS.
On Jan. 20, Trump became president. One of his first acts: Signing Executive Order 14172, which directed the USGS’ Board on Geographic Names — and all federal agencies — to adopt “Gulf of America” in favor of “Gulf of Mexico.”
“The Gulf will continue to play a pivotal role in shaping America’s future and the global economy, and in recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our Nation’s economy and its people, I am directing that it officially be renamed the Gulf of America,” Trump wrote.
The executive order, which Trump dubbed “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness,” also ordered the renaming of Denali, the nation’s tallest mountain, to Mount McKinley.
Another wave of media inquiries soon arrived in USGS inboxes. They ranged from the biggest of news organizations — The New York Times, NPR, CNN, CBS — to niche publications such as The Hollywood Reporter, US Border News, High Country News and Oil & Gas Journal. International outlets from Egypt, Poland and Norway also had questions.
Tischler, too, had questions about Trump’s order. He sent an email to an official at the State Department, whose name is redacted.
“Does this definition constitute the entire Gulf? Or are we going to splitting the feature into two — Gulf of Mexico in the southern portion and Gulf of America in the northern portion?”
The unnamed State Department official responded, but the U.S. Geological Survey redacted the official’s entire email upon releasing it to NOTUS, making it impossible to know what was said.
The answer would arrive soon enough as Trump applied “Gulf of America” to the entire gulf, not a portion.
Tischler did not respond to requests for comment, nor did the State Department or more than a dozen other USGS staff members named in the records obtained by NOTUS.
“We will not be able to support the interviews,” the USGS press office wrote in an unsigned message Friday, referring questions to the U.S. Department of the Interior, to which NOTUS sent a series of questions.
The Department of the Interior did not directly address several questions about specific USGS email exchanges and decisions to not respond to press inquiries.
But Interior Department spokesperson Alyse Sharpe said USGS “followed standard protocol by referring all related media inquiries to [the Department of the Interior], as is appropriate when the department is leading a high-level initiative. The notion that USGS staff deliberately withheld information or acted inappropriately is categorically false.”
Sharpe added: “This narrative not only misrepresents the facts but also unfairly targets career civil servants who executed their roles exactly as expected within a coordinated interagency process. Furthermore, USGS routinely shares public input with department leadership, but it is neither possible nor standard to individually respond to every email we receive. That reality should not be distorted into something nefarious.”
Asked about whether the Biden White House communicated with USGS about Trump’s “Gulf of America” declaration, Sharpe said that “department leadership under the Biden administration didn’t provide any formal guidance on Gulf of America renaming to USGS and didn’t share anything with media on the topic either. That would have been speculative as to the plans of an incoming administration.”
Sharpe noted that the Department of the Interior issued a press release about the Gulf of America and Mount McKinley on Jan. 24, four days after Trump’s inauguration.
On Feb. 14, the USGS’ communications office announced in a press release: “As directed by the President, the Gulf of America enters the USGS official place names database.”
Caroline Hendrie, executive director of the Society of Professional Journalists, argued that the USGS records reveal “stonewalling” by public officials during their “Gulf of America” deliberations.
The agency’s actions, which took place under Biden, preceded the Trump White House in February barring Associated Press reporters from White House functions and Air Force One because the news agency would not alter its style on the “Gulf of Mexico” despite Trump’s demands it use “Gulf of America.”
The Associated Press responded by suing the Trump administration. In June, a federal appeals court ruled 2-1 that Trump must allow AP reporters access to larger-scale official events but could ban them from places such as the Oval Office and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
Trump, meanwhile, has sued several news outlets, including ABC, CBS News parent Paramount, The Des Moines Register and, most recently, The Wall Street Journal, for what he considers “fake” news.
As for the USGS, “It’s unacceptable for public officials, particularly those in communications roles funded by taxpayers, to adopt a deliberate strategy of ignoring journalists’ requests,” Hendrie said.
“It sends a message across government that transparency is optional, and that’s corrosive for press freedom and the public’s right to know,” she added. “Agencies need to put public interest over political convenience. The public has a right to know about government decision-making that affects shared resources and shared identity, like place names.”
Dave Levinthal is a Washington, D.C.-based investigative journalist.