US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order seeking to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America.
The move comes after trade talks between the US and Canada collapsed late last week, and the US imposed new 50% tariffs on $20bn (C$28bn) worth of Canadian goods. Canada will implement “dollar for dollar” counter tariffs next month.
Trump has repeatedly posted threats about renaming the lake, one of the five Great Lakes that straddle both countries, on social media amid the trade dispute.
He said on Thursday the move was “official, effective immediately” and that his administration has “filed all the necessary papers, documents” to make the change.
When Trump took the White House in 2025, he signed a similar order that changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Mexico has rejected the name change, arguing a single country cannot rename a shared body of international water.
It also led to a dispute between Mexico and tech giant Google, which renamed the gulf in its maps application.
Trump’s latest order directs the US Department of the Interior to update the Geographic Names Information Service – the official repository of domestic geographic names in the US – to reflect the name change, the president said.
Canada, however, does not have to recognise name changes made by other countries and officials dismissed the idea in remarks earlier this week.
“We’ll always call it Lake Ontario,” said Industry Minister Melanie Joly on Tuesday.
Credit: bbc.com
