John Mellencamp is using his ongoing greatest hits tour to slam President Donald Trump for trying to rebrand the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”
The rock icon — while performing “Pink Houses” during a Saturday concert in Holmdel, New Jersey — stopped himself after singing the lyrics “Go to work in some high-rise, and vacation down at the Gulf of Mexico.”
“Wait a minute,” began Mellencamp as his band continued to play.
“The Gulf of Mexico? Is that right? It’s not the Gulf of America? What a stupid fucking idea that is,” he continued, before proceeding with the rest of the song.
Mellencamp has made similar detours during the song at other stops on his Dancing Words tour, including a recent performance in Wantagh, New York, where he reportedly told a crowd, “They changed the name of it, but I’m not buying it.”
John Mellencamp performs in March during the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre.
Frank Micelotta via Getty Images
Trump has pushed to change the Gulf of Mexico’s over 400-year-old, widely backed name since just before the start of his second term.
While some map sites, namely Google, changed the name of the gulf following a Trump executive order, plenty of others did not.
The gulf’s long-held name, in fact, apparently reflects Mexico laying claim to a greater percentage of the body of water than the United States.
Mellencamp, a frequent supporter of Democratic causes, has largely strayed from directly criticizing Trump.
At a 2018 press conference for a Farm Aid benefit concert, he referred to the president as a “madman” while warning that his tariffs on Chinese products — and China’s subsequent retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products — could hurt American farmers.
Back in April, Trump toyed with rebranding the body of water to “the Gulf of Trump” before claiming that he just “joking.”
