Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei mocked President Donald Trump on Tuesday over his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to become the Gulf of America, Newsweek reported.
"USA has set out to change on paper the map of the world! Of course, only on paper. In the real world, it lacks all reality," Khamenei posted on X in Spanish and other languages. The accompanying image used the words "Golfo de México," or Gulf of Mexico in Spanish.
One of Trump's first executive orders as president was the Gulf of Mexico change, and on Monday, workers at the U.S. Board on Geographic Names have formally changed the name to the Gulf of America. Google has also complied and updated its maps, although Mexico's president Claudia Sheinbaum has promised to ignore it. While traveling to the Super Bowl on Sunday, Trump declared the day as the "first ever Gulf of America Day."
The comments from Khamenei follow further trolling of Trump when, on Monday, Iran's state-run Fars News Agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, aired a propaganda video depicting the mock arrest of Trump.
While the Iranian leader's derision of Trump appears light, the threats against Trump's life by Iran are very real. On Sunday, reporter Alex Isenstadt revealed that threats against the president had reached such a level during the 2024 campaign that Trump took a decoy flight out of fear of being shot down by an Iranian sleeper cell.
Isenstadt wrote that last year, "Law enforcement officials warned Trump that Tehran had placed operatives in the U.S. with access to surface-to-air missiles."
Last week, Trump issued instruction to his advisers on protocol to take if he were to be assassinated by Iran. "If they did that, they would be obliterated," Trump said in an exchange with reporters while signing an executive order calling for the U.S. government to impose maximum pressure on Tehran. "I've left instructions if they do it, they get obliterated; there won't be anything left."
If Trump were assassinated, Vice President JD Vance would become president and would not necessarily be bound by any instructions left by his predecessor.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.