Donald Trump, the President of the United States, revealed that he directly contacted Google CEO Sundar Pichai to propose renaming the Atlantic Ocean, but was turned down.
According to reports from The Washington Post on October 22, Trump shared this anecdote during a campaign rally in South Carolina the previous night, discussing his idea to rename the Atlantic.
He stated, "We have lakes and bays, and now we need rivers and oceans," explaining that he called Pichai to discuss changing the name of the Atlantic to 'Trump Ocean' or 'Ocean of the Americas.'
Trump recounted that he asked Pichai if he could handle the renaming like past geographical name changes, but was met with a firm refusal. Pichai reportedly responded, "No, no, no. Not this time. The ocean connects many countries, so the situation is different. Please don’t make such requests."
Previously, the Trump administration faced diplomatic tensions with Mexico over renaming the Gulf of Mexico to 'Gulf of America,' and in August, during a dispute with Canada, it renamed Lake Ontario, located on the New York-Canada border, to 'Lake America.'
Due to the President's administrative authority to change names of geographical features, private online mapping services, including Google, have generally accommodated such changes for U.S. users.
However, the Atlantic's international interests likely led Google to reject the request. Trump indicated that, following Google's refusal, he might consider renaming the Pacific Ocean to 'American Ocean.'
Meanwhile, Google has not confirmed whether the call took place and did not provide an immediate response to inquiries regarding the matter.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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