Amid his escalating trade dispute with Canada, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing federal agencies to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.”
The order requires US federal agencies to use the new name on government maps, documents and databases. However, Trump cannot change the name used by Canada for its portion of the lake or compel international bodies, mapmakers or other countries to adopt the new name.
The move follows Trump’s decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” shortly after beginning his second term.
“We have a gulf and we have a lake – now all we need is an ocean. Maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific,” he told reporters, sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. “Maybe we’ll change them both.”
Canadian PM rejects Trump’s executive Order
US President Donald Trump’s unilateral order renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America” has been rejected by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
Carney pointed out that the lake’s name predates the US and Canada becoming states in a statement opposing the US decree.
“The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontario, which, appropriately, means “the lake is beautiful, the lake is big” The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America,” Carney said.
“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms.
“Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.”
There is no single global authority responsible for regulating geographical names, so it remains unclear whether Trump’s order will influence how countries outside the United States refer to the lake.
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes and spans the Canada-US border, with Ontario to the north and New York to the south.
The dispute comes as the U.S.–Canada trade war has sharply escalated. President Donald Trump has been using tariffs to pressure Canada over what he describes as unfair trade practices, while Canada has responded with retaliatory tariffs.
Most recently, Washington imposed 50% tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian imports, prompting Ottawa to announce counter-tariffs. Trade negotiations between the two countries have also broken down
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