Associated Press barred from Oval Office for not using ‘Gulf of America’ | Trump administration

The Associated Press said it was barred from sending a reporter to Tuesday’s Oval Office executive order signing in an effort to “punish” the agency for its style guidance on upholding the use of the name of the Gulf of Mexico, in lieu of Donald Trump’s preferred name for the geographic landmark as the Gulf of America.

AP’s executive editor, Julie Pace, said in a statement: “As a global news organization, The Associated Press informs billions of people around the world every day with factual, nonpartisan journalism.”

“Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.”

Pace continued: “It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism. Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”

Aaron Terr, of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), called the move “an alarming attack on press freedom”.

“The role of our free press is to hold those in power accountable, not to act as their mouthpiece. Any government efforts to erode this fundamental freedom deserve condemnation,” Terr said.

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) protested the decision in a statement posted on social media.

“The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decisions,” said Eugene Daniels, WHCA president. “The move by the administration to bar a reporter from the Associated Press from an official event open to news coverage today is unacceptable.”

The order-signing in the Oval Office ultimately became a question-and-answer session with the president and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man tasked by Trump with overhauling the US government. When asked about those who have called Musk’s anti-government efforts a “hostile takeover” of the executive branch, Musk said: “The people voted for major government reform and that’s what the people are going to get.”

Shortly after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order to rename both the Gulf of Mexico and Denali, the highest peak in North America. Per his order, the Gulf of Mexico would be renamed the Gulf of America, and Denali will revert to Mount McKinley – the name it was called before Barack Obama changed it in 2015.

At the time, the Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum jokingly suggested that North America, including the United States, should be renamed Mexican America as it had been in the 17th century.

A few days later, the AP rolled out their style guidance on Trump’s order, noting that the organisation “will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen”. The AP said that’s because the gulf has carried the Gulf of Mexico name for “more than 400 years” and that other countries and international bodies do not have to recognize the name change.

That’s not the case for Mount McKinley, whose name Trump changed from its former name of Denali. Because the area of the Alaskan mountain “lies solely in the United States” and Trump had full authority to change the name, the AP said it will use the name Mount McKinley.

The AP style is not only used by the agency, but also by thousands of journalists and writers globally.

Most news organizations, including Reuters, call it the Gulf of Mexico although, where relevant, Reuters style is to include the context about Trump’s executive order.

The AP’s move was a stark departure from other major organisations, including Google, which has since confirmed and renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America on Google Maps in the US.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the statements by the WHCA and the AP. Mexico’s foreign ministry also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.