The stated policy of National Geographic Maps is to aim for political neutrality, annotating disputes with explanatory notes.

[4] In August 2015, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced that mountain's name would officially be changed to Denali in all federal documents.

[9] The Obama administration's action was criticized by the entire Congressional delegation from President McKinley's home state of Ohio.

[10] In December 2024, President-elect Donald Trump stated that he planned to revert the mountain's official name to Mount McKinley during his second term.

[16] In 2010, comedian Stephen Colbert humorously suggested creating a "Gulf of America fund" to help in the cleanup following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

[a] In 2012, Mississippi State Representative Steve Holland, a Democrat, introduced a bill proposing the name change satirically.

In an interview with NPR at the time, he explained that as the Mississippi Republican Party appeared to want to push anything Mexican out of the state, renaming the body of water would help with that cause.

[1] The order directs the Secretary of the Interior to reinstate the name "Mount McKinley" within 30 days, reversing the 2015 decision to rename it Denali.

The Secretary will also work with Alaska Native groups and local organizations to identify other landmark names that honor Alaskan history and culture.

[1] The Secretary of the Interior is encouraged to seek public and intergovernmental input regarding other figures or landmarks that could be honored, particularly in light of America's upcoming 250th anniversary.

[35] The BGN rejected several proposals to revert Mount McKinley back to Denali, because overriding an executive order would require Congressional intervention.

On February 7, 2025, the Alaska State Legislature passed a joint resolution urging the federal government to retain Denali as the mountain's official name.

Senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, co-sponsored legislation to officially redesignate the mountain as Denali.

[46] A bill in the Iowa House of Representatives would require schools to use "Gulf of America" and Mount McKinley in classroom instruction and on any handouts given to students.

Google added the United States and Mexico to an internal list of "sensitive" countries that require special consideration on maps, alongside China, Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and others.

[63] Google implemented the Gulf of America and Mount McKinley labels in early February, immediately following updates to GNIS.

[66][67] President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico objected to Google relabeling of the Gulf and had Foreign Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente send Google a letter threatening a civil lawsuit if they did not restore Gulf of Mexico to their maps, arguing that their depiction contradicts international law.

[69][70] Mark Monmonier, the author of How to Lie with Maps, criticized Google's decision to acquiesce to what he described as President Trump's bullying.

[71] Among print publishers, Rand McNally stated that they would wait for the Department of the Interior to conduct legal and public review before making any adjustments to their atlases.

[73][74] Japanese map and textbook publisher Teikoku Shoin said they would maintain the name Gulf of Mexico for the 2025–2026 school year and would reassess afterwards.

[77] Political commentator David Frum describes President Trump's renaming of the gulf as an attempt to project U.S. power, contrasting it with the historical European practice of mariners naming seas after destinations in less powerful countries on the opposite side, thus critiquing the action as a marker of decline.

[80] Opinion polls conducted since the executive order have ranked the renaming of the Gulf as one of the least popular actions of the second Trump administration.