Trump takes aim at a US state - again - in his latest push to remake the nation’s maps

President Donald Trump has again pushed New Mexico to rebrand itself, declaring on Truth Social that the state should rename itself "New America." He argued that the change would lift home values and incomes, and he suggested it might even restore honesty to elections there, which he called crooked. The 80-year-old president made the same pitch in September, when he circulated a map with Mexico crossed out and replaced by America, and addressed viewers as "New America" while endorsing Republican congressional candidate Greg Cunningham. At that point he said residents would decide, and claimed many people liked the idea, according to The Independent.

Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham rejected it then, saying the name predates the United States and that the real question is who is helping working families. She cited free childcare and college, health care protections and housing investment, and accused the White House of wasting time on maps.

The idea echoes Trump's January 2025 executive order retitling the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and restoring Mount McKinley as the name of Denali. Federal agencies adopted the changes, though private parties need not. He later renamed Lake Ontario in a similar order and mused about the Atlantic and Pacific.

Summarized by PolitiKool from The Independent’s reporting. Read the full story at The Independent →