Omg I'm looking at the pull request for this change right now and there's almost 100 comments on it
Most of it are random software engineers from various ethnicities suggesting better translations for the non-English changes
People were debating exactly what the geographic boundaries/regions are for the which version you would see to decrease the odds of overall public backlash worldwide
Some people were trying to protest the change and citing laws and saying Google shouldn't kowtow to Trump
Depending on where the app detects you are, google maps shows different borders and names. So to some countries, it'll show "Gulf of America", "Gulf of Mexico", or even "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)". This is just based on what they perceive to be the most popular politics are in that particular country/government
A famous example is that the borders of India are slightly smaller or bigger depending if you're in Pakistan, India, or China due to all the border disputes those 3 countries have the region