Trump Renames 'Lake Ontario' to 'Lake America'
Photo: Reuters.
US President Donald Trump has poured fuel on the fire amid the ongoing trade war with Canada by renaming the cross-border lake shared by the two countries from 'Lake Ontario' to 'Lake America'.
On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order for the name change during a press conference in the Oval Office. He told journalists that the order would take effect 'immediately'.
When asked what message he intended to send to Canada by renaming the lake, Trump claimed that Canada had been 'cheating' the United States for a long time.
He said, "Actually, they haven't treated us well. Canadian officials have treated us very badly. They are terrible people."
"I've actually been thinking about renaming the lake for a long time," Trump added.
However, immediately after Trump's order, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected it in a post on X. He wrote, "We know America is changing. Their trade relations, foreign policy, national monuments, and even hydrographic names are changing." However, Carney noted that Canadians have always called it Lake Ontario and will continue to call it by that name.
Last week, following the failure of trade negotiations between the two countries, the Trump administration imposed a 50 percent tariff on various Canadian goods. At that time, trade representatives from both countries held three days of talks in Washington DC but failed to reach a final trade agreement. Immediately afterward, the Trump administration imposed a 50 percent tariff on Canadian goods worth approximately 200 billion dollars.
In response, Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on US goods. These tariffs will apply to American products worth approximately 200 billion US dollars, including steel, furniture, fresh tuna, and cotton T-shirts. Amid this tit-for-tat trade war, Trump signed the executive order changing the name of the border lake.
The name of Lake Ontario is shared with Canada's most populous province, Ontario, but the lake's name actually derives from the Huron Indigenous word 'Ontariario', which means 'lake of shining waters'. The province, established in 1867, was named after the lake. Prime Minister Carney said that the name Lake Ontario is more than 400 years old.
Even though Trump has changed the name, Canada is not obligated to accept it. The lake lies on the border between the two countries, with the international boundary running through the middle of the lake.
Earlier, Donald Trump had also renamed the Gulf of Mexico. In 2025, after taking office for his second term, he changed the name of the 'Gulf of Mexico' to the 'Gulf of America'. However, the gulf had been known as the 'Gulf of Mexico' long before the establishment of the United States. For nearly 500 years, cartographers and various countries have called it the 'Gulf of Mexico'.
