 "White House bans AP from Oval Office, Air Force One over 'Gulf of Mexico' dispute")
News wire service The Associated Press has been banned from the Oval Office and Air Force One indefinitely by the White House over the use of ‘Gulf of Mexico’ and not the renamed version ‘Gulf of America’.
Last month, US President Donald Trump announced that his administration would the water body “Gulf of America” as he insisted that it should celebrate America’s name instead of Mexico’s.
The United States, Mexico, and Cuba have long shared control over the Gulf, a vital hub for economic activities such as fishing, electricity generation, and shipping.
The president even went a step further and declared February 9’s Gulf of America Day. That’s the same day he signed the executive order initiating the renaming process.
Why has AP been banned?
The White House barred a credentialed Associated Press reporter and photographer from boarding the presidential airplane Friday for a weekend trip with Donald Trump, saying the news agency’s stance on how to refer to the Gulf of Mexico was to blame for the exclusion.
AP is among the swath of other global news outlets that did not comply with the rebranding of Gulf of Mexico saying that it has an audience from countries that have not recognised the new name.
Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich said on X, “While their right to irresponsible and dishonest reporting is protected by the First Amendment, it does not ensure their privilege of unfettered access to limited spaces, like the Oval Office and Air Force One.”
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View All“Going forward, that space will now be opened up to the many thousands of reporters who have been barred from covering these intimate areas of the administration,” he added.
AP denounces move
“Freedom of speech is a pillar of American democracy and a core value of the American people. The White House has said it supports these principles,” AP spokeswoman Lauren Easton said Friday night. “The actions taken to restrict AP’s coverage of presidential events because of how we refer to a geographic location chip away at this important right enshrined in the US Constitution for all Americans.”
The body of water in question has been called the Gulf of Mexico for hundreds of years. AP, whose influential stylebook is used by news outlets as an arbiter of language and usage, advised that because of its broad set of global customers, it would both refer to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico and also reference Trump’s order changing the name to the Gulf of America within the United States.
With inputs from agencies
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