Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested Wednesday that the United States revert to a historic name for the territory, America Mexicana, in a clapback at President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump had said during a news conference on Tuesday that he was seeking to rename the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America.
With a 1607 map displayed onstage, Sheinbaum swept her hand across a territory that is now the U.S., Mexico and part of Canada.
“Why don’t we call it America Mexicana. It sounds pretty, no? Isn’t that true?” a smiling Shinebaum said at the start of her Wednesday news conference.
She reiterated what Jose Alfonso Suarez del Real, a politician and former cultural secretary, said before she took the microphone.
The official explained that America Mexicana had been the name of the territory in 1607 on the European map commissioned for the Dutch East India Company, based in Amsterdam.
That name, America Mexicana, also is referenced in Mexico’s Constitution of Apatzingán drafted during the independence movement against Spanish rule, the expert said.
“Since 1607, the Constitution of Apatzingán was of America Mexicana, so let’s call it America Mexicana,” the president then said.
She also rejected a comment by Trump that Mexico is run by drug cartels. She said Trump was misinformed that Mexico still is run by Felipe Calderón, who was Mexico’s president from 2006 to 2012, and Calderon’s former security official, who was convicted of accepting bribes from cartels.
“But no,” she said. “In Mexico, the people rule.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
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