By Fernando Buen Abad on January 24, 2025
All the atrocities that Donald Trump invents would be inconsequential if we had a communication and semiotic front capable of generating timely and effective counter-offensives. Changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico is nothing less than a declaration of “symbolic war”. Such an idiotic idea is neither casual nor lacking in depth, although it may seem like nothing more than a tantrum of disrespectful ignorance on the part of a tycoon. Underlying this is an offensive for control of meanings and a historical narrative sponsored by the bourgeois “culture war” that is unfolding across the planet to restore to the empire the “prerogative” of imposing the meaning of domination on all meaning. Oligarchic morals with political and cultural recipients region by region. Trump exhibits his very limited geopolitical respect and his exorbitant petulance as a trend to deploy symbolic maneuvers and offend the people in order to discipline them. He will pay the political and cultural consequences. Does Xi Jinping hear that?
His stupidity is a semantic engine, not simple ignorance, because with such arrogant insolence the magnate wants us to accept him as our boss while we give him away the strategic resources, including the identity of the names. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico is a farce that tramples all the historical or geographical foundations of our identities, reflecting contempt for reality with symbolic violence against the cultures and peoples that have given meaning to that space for centuries. Trump not only insults the history of the region, but also seeks to erase its significance as a geographical and symbolic space shared between multiple nations and cultures, especially Mexico, whose relationship with the USA has been marked by historical conflicts, disputes and tensions of domination, intervention and plunder.
It is an irritating whim to rename an area so dear to the region’s identity. It is not just a matter of words, because it carries the imperial intention of reconfiguring the collective imagination. In the foolishness of Trump and his followers, there is an ideological operation to reinterpret the Gulf as an exclusively American space, erasing its connection with Mexico and, by extension, with Latin America. It is an example of the Trumpist obscenity of “America First”, copied by many of his henchmen and imitators across the continent, determined to erase anything that is not an affirmation of US imperial power.
It is a declaration of “cognitive warfare” with semantic, syntactic and pragmatic violence. Stupidity that shows how economic power can also be deployed in the symbolic sphere to impose a hegemonic narrative, eliminating the original or revolutionary versions of history. Analyzing and denouncing it offers us tools to understand this semiotic humiliation whose symbolic dictatorship imposes aberrant meanings to facilitate the cultural control and ideological hegemony that are essential for the maintenance of capitalism and its vampires.
Trump invents the whim of “renaming” it to strip the Gulf of Mexico (a source of magnificent oil wealth in shallow and deep waters) of its history and turn it into a symbol of imperialist power. This not only rubs our faces in his narrative of American exceptionalism, but also serves to perpetuate a discourse of inferiority against Mexico and Latin America, which have historically been anti-imperialist, revolutionaries of sovereignty and bastions of dignity. We are not jokingly afraid of the scale of this rich man’s clowning around.
Although some local henchmen applaud Trump, let’s not fall for his distractions. Right-wing populism, which Trump exudes exponentially, hides much more perverse plans that need to be disguised because they breed truly villainous ambitions of plunder and exploitation in the short term. While the structural problems of the United States (such as fires, economic inequality, climate change, drug trafficking mafias, the weakness of its health system, and the intellectual anorexia of its leaders) remain unresolved, cultural and symbolic wars become fertile ground for deceiving the people.
Renaming the Gulf of Mexico, as well as being offensive, is absolutely useless, which is why it is suspicious of everything. However, some believe that by mobilizing nationalist emotions and stoking resentments, they will reinforce the figure of Trump (declared a criminal by several Yankee judges) as a leader willing to “defend” imperial interests against any enemy, real or imagined. Their stupidity is not an accidental quality, but a class nature bent on hijacking the wealth of the working class and the abundance of natural resources belonging to humanity as a whole.
And let’s not forget that by changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico they will have perfect excuses to prohibit China from any circulation in waters that would appear to be Yankee property. It is the kind of perversion that inhabits the head of Trump, who is determined to impose his narrative as a super-egotistical boss. They shall not pass.
Against these symbolic warfare maneuvers, it is essential to understand that the fight in our defense is not only in the economic or military sphere, but also in the psychological and emotional terrain. Changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico would not only be an act of symbolic violence against the history and identity of the peoples that surround it, it is also a dangerous episode for the imposition of hegemonic narratives. We must not be content with momentary indignation or circumstantial rejection. We are in a scenario of dispute over meaning and our reaction must be rigorous, organized and conscious. It is urgent to dismantle the hegemonic narratives that seek to erase historical and cultural diversity, while at the same time building alternatives based on justice, equality and respect for shared identities. Resist and build.
Changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico is not just the whim of tycoons, it is an offensive imperial project disguised as bourgeois nationalism, intoxicated by strategic ignorance and symbolic manipulation. It reflects a worldview in which power also resides in the capacity for war to impose meanings and rewrite history at will. It shows us the importance of disputing every millimetre of the symbolic and cultural sphere, constructing narratives that challenge hegemony and affirm our own historical and cultural richness. Our struggle for meaning is also a struggle for dignity. Against this imperial symbolic war, organization, critical thinking and cultural mobilization are our best tools. If we unite.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English