Mexico's president lashed out at Donald Trump on Wednesday, saying the United States should be called “Mexican America,” after Trump's promise to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
At her regular morning press conference, Claudia Sheinbaum showed off a 17th-century world map depicting North America as “Mexican America.”
Pointing out that the Gulf of Mexico was the name recognized by the United Nations, she turned the tables on Trump, saying, “Why don't we call it (the United States) Mexican America?”
“It sounds fun, doesn't it?”
“He talked about the name, we talk about the name too,” she said, assuring that she expected to have “good relations” with the next US president.
Trump, who will be sworn in for a second term on Jan. 20, said Tuesday he planned to rename the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring.”
'It's appropriate. And Mexico must stop allowing millions of people to flood into our country,” he said.
He also claimed that Mexico was controlled by drug cartels, to which Sheinbaum responded that “in Mexico the people rule.”
Ahead of his return to office, Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Mexico, threatening to impose tough tariffs on imports from one of the United States' largest trading partners unless it stems the flow of illegal migrants and drugs across the border.
He has also revived a threat from his first term to designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups.
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