Trump To Announce New Name for Persian Gulf, Officials Say

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

President Donald Trump will reportedly announce during a trip to Saudi Arabia that the United States will henceforth refer to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf.

Two unnamed U.S. officials told AP on Tuesday that Trump was planning to officially rename the gulf as tensions with Iran continue to grow.

While it has been predominantly referred to as the Persian Gulf since the 16th century, Gulf Arab states – including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates – have sought to remove Persia from the name and commonly refer to it as the Arabian Gulf.

In the United States, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency uses “Persian Gulf” as the “conventional” name for the gulf, but also lists “Arabian Gulf” and “Persian-Arabian Gulf” as variants.

According to AP, “The U.S. military for years has unilaterally referred to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf in statements and images it releases.”

President Trump controversially renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America following his inauguration in January.

Last month, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt warned Iran there would be “all hell to pay” if they refused to agree to Trump’s demands over the country’s nuclear program.

In March, Trump also warned Iran they would “suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire,” if they continued to back the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

While former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has advised Trump against taking military action against Iran, warning that such a move would “set off a war” and “result in thousands of American deaths,” Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) – a staunch supporter of Israel – encouraged Trump to “waste that shit” and “destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.”