Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario ‘Lake America’ as Canada trade feud deepens

Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario ‘Lake America’ as Canada trade feud deepens

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing that Lake Ontario be renamed “Lake America” for official US government use, adding an unusual new front to his escalating dispute with Canada.

Trump announced the move on Thursday in the Oval Office, saying the new name would take effect immediately.

“We’re going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario effective immediately to Lake America,” Trump told reporters.

He said the idea had been on his mind for some time.

“The lake change, the Lake of America, was something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, actually,” Trump said.

The order directs the US Interior Department and the Board on Geographic Names to update federal geographic records within 30 days and remove references to Lake Ontario from the US Geographic Names Information System.

But Washington's decision does not mean Canada is obliged to adopt the new name.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday that his government would continue to call the body of water Lake Ontario, pointing out that the name predates both modern Canada and the United States. 

“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.

A geographical name becomes a political weapon

Lake Ontario is one of North America's five Great Lakes and straddles the international boundary between Canada's Ontario province and New York state.

The latest move is largely symbolic, but its timing is anything but accidental.

Washington and Ottawa are already locked in a bitter trade dispute. Negotiations between the two governments collapsed last week after three days of intensive discussions, with both sides blaming the other for the breakdown.

Trump has subsequently imposed 50 per cent tariffs on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, while Canada has announced retaliatory measures of its own. The dispute threatens industries on both sides of a border where supply chains, particularly in manufacturing and energy, are deeply integrated.

Trump has repeatedly used geographic naming as a vehicle for his “America First” agenda.

On his first day back in office in January 2025, he signed an order directing the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” for US federal purposes. The Board on Geographic Names subsequently incorporated the change into federal records.

This time, however, the target is a body of water directly shared with a neighbouring country.

The distinction between US and international naming is important.

Trump can direct federal agencies to use “Lake America” in official US documents, maps and databases, but the United States cannot compel Canada to adopt the designation.

That leaves the two countries potentially using different names for the same lake — an outcome already familiar from the earlier Gulf of Mexico dispute.

Carney's response made Canada's position clear: Ottawa intends to continue using the historic name.

The White House, meanwhile, argues that the lake has particular significance to the United States and says the country has invested heavily in protecting the Great Lakes.

Trump's executive order claims that the deepest parts of the lake lie within US territory and highlights American investment in Great Lakes environmental protection, shipping and security. It says the United States has invested nearly $4 billion in protecting the Great Lakes ecosystem over the past decade.

‘Maybe we’ll change’ the oceans too

Trump appeared to leave the door open to further geographic renaming.

After announcing the change, he joked about whether the Atlantic or Pacific could eventually receive a similar treatment.

“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 said. “Maybe we’ll change them both.”

The remark adds to a pattern of using geographic names to project American identity and sovereignty, rather than treating them simply as neutral labels.

The political rhetoric surrounding the dispute contrasts sharply with public sentiment.

A Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted in May found that 72 per cent of Americans held a favourable view of Canada, giving the country the highest favourable rating among all nations included in the poll.

That figure was also roughly twice Trump's own approval rating at the time.

The contrast highlights the unusual nature of the dispute: while political relations have deteriorated, the two populations remain closely connected through geography, trade, tourism, family ties and decades of cultural exchange.

A lake divided by an international border

Under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, roughly 52 per cent of Lake Ontario's surface area lies within Canada, with the remainder in New York.

That makes Trump's order fundamentally different from changing the name of a geographical feature entirely within US territory.

For Washington, “Lake America” is now the official federal designation.

For Ottawa, it remains Lake Ontario.

And for the millions of people who live around the Great Lakes, the name change may ultimately prove less consequential than the dispute that produced it: a rapidly intensifying US-Canada trade confrontation in which tariffs, political rhetoric and now even the names of shared landmarks have become part of the fight.