Donald Trump has spent the last few months trying to rename the Gulf of Mexico. More recently, the president took an interest in trying to rename Veterans Day, too.
According to The Associated Press, the list is poised to keep growing.
President Donald Trump plans to announce while on his trip to Saudi Arabia next week that the United States will now refer to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf or the Gulf of Arabia, according to two U.S. officials. Arab nations have pushed for a change to the geographic name of the body of water off the southern coast of Iran, while Iran has maintained its historic ties to the gulf.
The AP’s report, which has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, added that the “Persian Gulf” has been widely used since the 16th century, “although usage of ‘Gulf of Arabia’ and ‘Arabian Gulf’ is dominant in many countries in the Middle East.”
I won’t pretend to have any special insights into what motivates the president to take such an interest in apparent trivialities, but there is a larger context to a story like this one.
NBC News reported that nearly all modern American presidents, when planning their first major foreign trips, have prioritized traditional U.S. allies such as Canada or the United Kingdom. In his first term, however, Trump chose Saudi Arabia as his first foreign destination — and next week, he’ll do the same again, returning to Riyadh for his first foreign trip of his second term.
That suggests his apparent interest in swapping “Arabian Gulf” for the Persian Gulf has been carefully timed. The New Republic further contextualized the Republican’s regional interests. The president is considering renaming the Persian Gulf the ‘Arabian Gulf,’ mere days after his family announced billions of dollars in forthcoming real estate deals in the region. Those plans include a Trump-branded golf course in Qatar (as part of a $5.5 billion development project), a $1 billion Trump hotel and residence in Dubai, and a $2 billion investment by an Abu Dhabi firm into one of Trump’s cryptocurrency projects, the World Liberty Financial Coin. The family also revealed in December that they would be expanding their presence in Saudi Arabia, announcing Trump Tower Jeddah.
If the AP’s report is correct, Trump will have something new to share with his hosts next week: a new addition to his renaming list.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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