President Donald Trump has revived his call to rename New Mexico, declaring on Truth Social that the state should “immediately” be rebranded as “New America” just days before the midterm elections.
“We are not Mexico, we are the United States of America!” Trump wrote, making the case for the proposed name.
Trump said the change could deliver both economic and cultural benefits, claiming it would increase home values and incomes while strengthening patriotism among residents.
He also folded the idea into his longstanding claims about election integrity, suggesting that even the “Crooked Elections” he associates with New Mexico might become honest under the new name.
Trump first floated the idea last month, when he shared a bizarre AI-edited meme depicting New Mexico under a different name.
The post followed other proposed geographic relabelings from Trump, including his references to Lake Ontario as the “Lake of America” and the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” In the New Mexico meme, the state was renamed “New America.”
The altered map showed the word “Mexico” crossed out in red and replaced with “America.”
Roughly an hour later, the 80-year-old president posted an AI-generated video showing him placing an “America” sticker over a “Welcome to New Mexico” highway sign before performing his familiar two-fist dance.
President Donald Trump renewed his campaign to rebrand New Mexico, writing on Truth Social that the state should “immediately change its name to New America.”
The Republican posted the image without a caption, prompting an angry reaction from his political opponents.
After apparently seeing the backlash, Trump shared an AI-generated video of himself replacing the label on a New Mexico welcome sign.
Trump wears a cowboy hat during a bill-signing ceremony with members of the 1980 U.S. Olympic men’s ice hockey team at the White House in Washington, D.C., on December 12, 2025.
“New Mexico’s name isn’t up for debate – it’s been ours since before the United States existed,” Democratic Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said previously.
She dismissed Trump’s proposal as a distraction from rising prices linked to the Iran war.
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“While the White House wastes time coloring on maps, Nuevo México is busy doing the work,” the governor said.
Despite the attention surrounding Trump’s proposal, the president lacks the authority to rename New Mexico.
Any formal effort to change the state’s name would have to originate in New Mexico because its current name is enshrined in the state Constitution.
Democrats also criticized Trump last month after he initially suggested changing the state’s name.
“It’s New Mexico, always has been and always will be,” Senator Ben Ray Luján wrote. He then called Trump a “sinvergüenza” and corrupt, using the Spanish term for a “shameless person” or “scoundrel.”
Democratic Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury responded bluntly: “Oh hell no! Our state’s name carries generations of history, culture, and family – and it belongs to us. We’re New Mexicans. Period.”
Santa Fe, New Mexico
President Donald Trump stoked controversy by suggesting that New Mexico be renamed ‘New America’
Trump argued that ‘we are not Mexico, we are the United States of America!’
Back in late August, Trump signed an executive order officially changing Lake Ontario’s name to Lake America.
‘We defend Canada for nothing, we don’t get anything,’ he told reporters in the Oval Office when asked what prompted these changes. ‘We love the people of Canada, but their representatives aren’t doing an appropriate job.’
Trump said he has been thinking of this name change for a ‘long time’.
Trump teased then that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans could be next on his radar.
‘Actually, as you know, we took something called the Gulf of Mexico and we changed it, and now it’s very routinely the Gulf of America,’ Trump noted. ‘So, if you think about it, we have a Gulf and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean. So, maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific.’
