Trump orders Lake Ontario renamed 'Lake America' in escalating Canada tensions

On Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to stop calling Lake Ontario by its name and start calling it Lake America instead. The directive applies to US maps, official documents, and government databases. It is, on its face, a unilateral act—Trump can tell the Department of Interior what to write on American paper, but he cannot rename a body of water that belongs to two countries, nor can he compel Canada, international mapmakers, or the rest of the world to follow suit.

The move echoes an earlier executive order from Trump's second term, when he renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. At the signing, he sat at the Resolute Desk with a large map propped behind him showing the Great Lakes region with "Lake America" printed in red. He mused to reporters about what might come next. "We have a gulf and we have a lake—now all we need is an ocean," he said. "Maybe we'll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we'll change them both."

Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the renaming almost immediately. In a post on social media, he explained that the lake's name originates in the Wendat language of Indigenous peoples and predates both Canadian Confederation and the US Declaration of Independence. "Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario—then, now and always," Carney wrote. Several US governors in the Great Lakes region joined the dismissal. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, whose state borders the lake, said flatly: "New York won't be calling it that." Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer noted that schoolchildren learn the acronym H-O-M-E-S for the five Great Lakes—Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior—and that acronym would no longer work. Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers mocked the order by filming himself signing a napkin renaming Lake Michigan to Lake Wisconsin.

The renaming sits within a much larger and more consequential dispute between the two countries. Trade talks between Washington and Ottawa collapsed over the weekend, and the US imposed a 50 percent tariff on several Canadian imports, with Trump threatening another round of 50 percent duties on Canadian steel, trucks, cars, and auto parts to begin in the new year. Carney responded with tariffs of 25 to 50 percent on hundreds of American goods. Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada should become the 51st state, a prospect that has provoked anger across the country.

Trump justified the trade actions by citing what he described as a $60 billion US trade deficit with Canada, though economists note this figure is driven almost entirely by American oil imports; without that category, the US actually runs a trade surplus with Canada. He claimed American farmers faced a 400 percent tariff from Canada, a figure that does not align with trade data showing that roughly 97 percent of US agricultural exports enter Canada duty-free under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, with tariffs on over-quota eggs, milk, and dairy reaching up to 300 percent. Trump also stated that the US defends Canada militarily without compensation. Both countries are NATO members bound by mutual defense treaties including the North Atlantic Treaty and the Ogdensburg Agreement.

When asked about the lake renaming, Trump said he had been considering it for a long time. An administration official added that most of Lake Ontario's volume lies within US territory and that the deepest section is in US waters. The order, Trump said, was effective immediately. Whether any federal agency will actually change its maps, or whether the change will persist beyond this administration, remains an open question.