President Donald Trump, who has already renamed two bodies of water after America, said he would like to redub the Atlantic Ocean as well — but that the CEO of Google pushed back on the idea.
At a rally at Clemson University in South Carolina Tuesday evening, Trump told the crowd, “So we have a lake. And we have a gulf. Now we need a river, and we need an ocean.” Trump continued: “I only like two oceans: the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. I’m not gonna put either ‘Trump’ or ‘America’ on any other ocean but these two.”
Last year, Trump declared that the Gulf of Mexico would henceforth be known as the “Gulf of America.” Then this August, amid a trade feud with Canada, he ordered Lake Ontario to be now called “Lake America.”
Trump said he “seriously looked at” renaming the Atlantic Ocean and called Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, to ask about whether Google Maps would rename the Atlantic.
“I said, ‘Sundar, I’m thinking of the Atlantic Ocean. Can you handle it?'” Trump recalled. According to Trump, the Google CEO responded, “No, no, no — this time I’m not doing it… Oceans are different, sir. They cover really a lot of countries. Please don’t ask us to do that.”
Trump said after the conversation with Pichai, he would “probably pass” on trying to rename the Atlantic Ocean.
Reps for Google did not respond to a request for comment.
In the U.S., Google Maps displays both the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Ontario with the new Trump-designated monikers but includes the more recognizable names in parentheses in search results.