President Trump wants to rename New Mexico: Will it happen?
By Easton Martin
President Donald Trump called on New Mexico to change its name to New America on Monday before departing the White House for a midterm campaign rally in Kansas.
Posting on Truth Social, the president stated that adopting the new name would increase property values, raise household incomes, and strengthen civic pride across the state.
”New Mexico should immediately change its name to New America. We are not Mexico, we are the United States of America! The name would add great value and prestige to the State! Home Values and Incomes would rise, and you would be even prouder while saluting our beautiful American Flag! Maybe even the Crooked Elections, that New Mexico is known for, would become honest again!”
Monday’s statement builds on a series of geographical renaming initiatives during President Trump’s second term. In January of 2025, the president signed Executive Order 14172, directing federal agencies to update the Geographic Names Information System and rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. On August 27 this year, he signed another executive order renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America for federal use amid ongoing trade disputes with Canada. The president first floated the state name change on September 6 by sharing a map with “Mexico” crossed out in red and replaced with “America,” which the official White House account amplified on X. Three days later, he pitched the proposal at the Republican National Committee Midterm Convention, telling attendees that voters favored the idea.
State Democratic officials rejected the proposal Monday evening and pointed to the territory’s pre-colonial naming origins, which date back to the sixteenth century. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and Senator Ben Ray Luján issued separate statements on social media affirming that the state will retain its historic name.
”Let me repeat: New Mexico was New Mexico long before the United States existed and we’ll be New Mexico forevermore.”
While the president holds executive authority to direct how federal agencies label bodies of water and landmarks in the Geographic Names Information System, the federal executive branch lacks constitutional authority to rename a state. Article I of the New Mexico Constitution explicitly establishes that the legal name of the state is New Mexico. Changing that designation requires the New Mexico Legislature to pass a constitutional amendment followed by ratification from the state’s voters.
