Trump has brought much-needed attention to a site of great tragedy: the Gulf of Mexico | Greg Grandin

Environmental disasters have plagued the water body for decades. Now the region is thrust in the global spotlight

The enormous semi-enclosed bay, its waters flanked by the Florida and Yucatan peninsulas and partially blockaded by Cuba, has been called the Golfo de Mexico for centuries, a name that first appeared on a world map in 1550. And for centuries the name bothered no one.

Thomas Jefferson used the name without shame, even as he, Donald Trump-like, imagined dominating nearby nations. If the US could take Cuba, Jefferson wrote in 1823, it would control the Gulf of Mexico and the countries and isthmus bordering on it". Country music stars, no less than founding fathers, liked the romance of the place. Tracy Lawrence dreams of a Gulf of Mexico filled with whiskey. Johnny Cash wanted to dump his blues down in the Gulf.