Donald Trump sparks fresh backlash with wild map post rebranding whole state 'New America'
Donald Trump has set off yet another wave of backlash after posting a map rebranding New Mexico as "New America" - the latest in a string of surreal name changes to hit the US map under his presidency.
The post landed as part of a Truth Social blitz on Sunday, with the president firing off 34 separate posts in under an hour. Among them: a map of the southwestern state with "Mexico" struck through and swapped for "America."
It's far from Trump's first swing at rewriting the map, reports the New York Post. He's already ordered the Gulf of Mexico renamed the Gulf of America, and did the same to Lake Ontario, rechristening it Lake America - a move widely seen as a dig at Canada amid an escalating trade war between the two countries.
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The renaming spree dates back to a January 2025 executive order, grandly titled "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness," which also saw Denali - North America's tallest peak - reverted to its old name, Mount McKinley, reports The Independent.
Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of Canada becoming America's 51st state, telling Fox News recently: "They think they're a state, but they're not a state", questioning why the US should be "subsidising" its northern neighbour.
As with his previous geography rebrands, the New Mexico suggestion didn't go down well. The group Republicans Against Trump fired back on X with a blunt: "WTF is wrong with him?"
When Trump first ordered Lake Ontario's rename, mapping app MapQuest flatly refused to follow suit, posting: "We're not changing it", a stance that saw the company's App Store ranking spike. Its general manager, Doug Berger, said the approach mirrored what they'd done with the Gulf of Mexico rename, insisting people simply wanted an app that "keeps the names they're familiar with." Tech giants Apple and Google, though, folded by quietly switching Lake Ontario to Lake America for US users on both platforms, just as they had with the Gulf.
Not everyone was against it. Conservative commentator Eric Daugherty seemed thrilled by the New Mexico suggestion, posting simply: "This man is on a roll!"
Trump's rebranding ambitions apparently don't stop at Earth's borders, either. Minutes after the New Mexico post, he shared an image of the moon on Truth Social with the caption: "The moon is ours."
The 80-year-old has leaned hard into legacy-building throughout his second term, from the map changes to a sprawling, costly new White House ballroom, and slapping his name across buildings in the capital. One of the more notable additions, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, was later ordered removed by a federal judge.
Despite the headline-grabbing antics, the appetite for approval isn't matching up. A CNN poll carried out by SSRS in late July found nearly three-quarters of the American public don't think Trump's been focused enough on the issues that actually matter to them.
Elsewhere in the same barrage, Trump's face turned up grafted onto wrestling icon Hulk Hogan's body, MAGA bandana and all, digitally stitched on for the post, plus another showing Iran's borders reshaped into the outline of the president's own head, as the US's war with the Middle Eastern nation stretches past the six-month mark.
Topics: Donald Trump, Google Maps, Social Media
Michael D. Carroll