On Louisiana’s coast, communities embrace ‘Gulf of America’ rebrand

DULAC – Sitting in the business office next to his boat dock and shrimp processing plant, David Chauvin couldn’t be more excited about the Gulf of Mexico’s rebrand to the Gulf of America. 

Chauvin is already scrawling Gulf of America on his seafood companies’ invoices. Last week, he submitted a trademark application for a new Gulf of America logo he plans to use on his shrimp packaging later this year. 

Chauvin’s life is intimately tied to – and almost entirely dependent on – the gulf. His family businesses include David Chauvin Seafood, Bluewater Shrimp and Chicky Lou’s. They cover nearly all the stages of getting shrimp from the gulf to people’s plates.

The companies sell fresh shrimp wholesale and through a retail store. They also peel, process and freeze shrimp, and supply shrimp boats with fuel and ice.

Chauvin’s businesses are based in Dulac, a small fishing community of 1,200 people built around a bayou in southern Terrebonne Parish, but he lives in Chauvin, an adjacent fishing town named after his ancestors, who helped found it. His wife, Kim Chauvin, is an elected member of the Terrebonne Parish Council.

That deep, generational connection to the Louisiana coast hasn’t left Chauvin with any reservations about ditching the 400-year-old Gulf of Mexico name, however. 

“I wonder why, in the first place, it was ever called the Gulf of Mexico,” he said in an interview. “I love what Trump is doing right now.”

Trump’s decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico has not been short on controversy, but Louisiana residents who live and work closest to that body of water have enthusiastically embraced the change. Many believe Gulf of America is not only a more appropriate moniker but will help give the region a much-needed economic boost. 

“Everybody has been positive about it,” said Dean Robichaux, a retired oil and gas executive staying earlier this month at his fishing camp on Grand Isle, a Jefferson Parish vacation destination that sticks out into the gulf. “It’s part of the culture change we need.” 

Pro-Gulf of America, Pro-Trump

Across the country, the Gulf of America name hasn’t necessarily been well received. A national poll from Marquette University Law School in Wisconsin found that 71% of people opposed the change. 

Google and Apple also faced backlash for changing their online maps to reflect the new name. Google resorted to blocking consumers from leaving critical comments about the Gulf of America on its website last week after being deluged with negative reviews over the issue. The Mexican government has also threatened to sue Google over the Gulf of America decision.

The Associated Press, one of the world’s leading news organizations, has declined to refer to the gulf by its new name, a decision that prompted Trump to retaliate by blocking AP reporters’ access to certain White House events. 

The resistance may break heavily along partisan lines. In the Marquette poll, opposition to the gulf name change came overwhelmingly from independents and Democrats. Republicans who participated in the poll favored the new name by 59%. 

This could explain the Louisiana coast’s enthusiasm for the name. In national politics, Louisiana leans heavily Republican and hasn’t supported a Democrat for president since Bill Clinton in his 1996 reelection campaign. Trump received 60% of the statewide vote in last November’s election.

Coastal communities are an even deeper shade of red than the state as a whole. In the parishes of Plaquemines, Terrebonne and Lafourche, Trump received 68%, 75% and 80% of the vote, respectively. The main highway that runs through Dulac toward the gulf is dotted with houses that have Trump flags flying outside of them. 

“I think most people are very happy with Trump around here,” said Sheri Bergeron, who works at Dugey’s Deli in Chauvin.

Some of those bayou communities see the Gulf of America name swap as a part of a bigger Trump package – one that is unabashedly committed to the American oil and gas industry and the Louisiana jobs they believe come along with it.

“I think people down here are mainly Republican, but that’s not why they are for it,” said Sonya Douglas, a Dulac resident whose husband and son work on tugboats that transport products for energy companies operating in the gulf.

Louisiana’s coastal region has struggled with repeated hurricanes and unaffordable insurance rates in recent years, but Trump has shown he will prioritize working class people and gulf oil production with the name change, Douglas said. 

Since Trump’s election, Port Fourchon – which is a land base at the southern tip of Lafourche Parish for many energy companies – has seen an increase in interest from businesses looking to operate in the gulf, said Chuckie Cheramie, who lives in Galliano in Lafourche and is the past president and current secretary of the port’s board of commissioners.

Cheramie said the port started using the Gulf of America name at its board meeting last week and in staff testimony to Congress earlier this month.

“I’m excited about the name change,” he added.

Buy American 

No one appears more excited about the Gulf of America than the leaders of the state’s seafood industry. They believe it will help beat back the influx of foreign shrimp flooding American markets.

“It’s going to have a huge role in the branding of our product,” said Chalin Delaune, head of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board. “The fact that we have the name change creates huge value.”

Delaune said his family’s seafood wholesale and processing business, Tommy’s Seafood Inc. in New Orleans, will phase in packaging that incorporates the Gulf of America name as soon as possible.

Like many other Louisiana seafood companies, he currently uses a “Wild American Seafood” label to distinguish his products from imports. But he believes the Gulf of America moniker will draw in more interest. 

“I think the Gulf of America, now being named as such, will bring more awareness,” Delaune said. “In a marketing world, branding is everything.”

David Chauvin has also used the “Wild American Seafood” logo on his shrimp packaging, but it’s still hard to distinguish American shrimp from Mexican shrimp in marketing materials. The name change will make that easier, he said.

“The whole country is in a shift to buy American,” Chauvin said. “It will make it clearer that it is an American product.”

Acy Cooper, a commercial fisherman from Venice in Plaquemines Parish who is also the head of Louisiana Shrimp Association, agrees the name change will be a boon for business, but he still has to get used to it. 

“The hardest thing will be remembering to call it the Gulf of America,” he said. 

State and local follow up

Trump’s name switch affected a wide swath of services – from Coast Guard updates to the National Weather Service reports – in recent weeks, but it is also limited to the United States’ federal government. International organizations and other countries, such as Mexico and Cuba, will continue referring to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico. 

The president’s executive order also doesn’t automatically change the gulf’s name when it comes to state government operations.

Gov. Jeff Landry supports the Gulf of America name but his staff is still working out what steps they have to take to make sure it is officially implemented at the state level, said Landry’s spokeswoman Kate Kelly. 

In Plaquemines Parish, Councilman Mitch Jurisich said he plans to introduce a resolution to have the local government formally adopt the Gulf of America name. Jurisich is a third generation oysterman.

“I look at the Gulf of America every day,” he said. “We need to get back to being the country that everybody fears.”

At least one Louisiana business is already seeing a huge boost in revenue from the name swap. 

By luck, Adam Peterson had already named his charter fishing company Gulf of America Outfitters in 2023, two years before Trump announced his intentions. 

Peterson, a Lafayette resident whose charters leave from Venice, said the company was not named with Trump or conservative politics in mind. It was a nod to a long-running joke he had with friends about what the body of water should be called. 

“You don’t see Mexico doing anything in the Gulf,” Peterson said. “We have joked for years about it being the Gulf of America.”

Minutes after Trump first announced the gulf’s name change in January, Peterson said his phone blew up with messages from friends and clients who thought Trump was referencing his charter operation.

His business also surged. Last year, Peterson recorded $33,000 in income for February. This year, it topped $167,000 in just the first two weeks of the month, he said.

There’s also been a spike in Peterson’s merchandise sales. Peterson has sold “Gulf of America” shirts for the past two years, but was recently overwhelmed with requests for them over the past few weeks. 

“We have no political affiliations with this but we are going to lean into it,” he said.