Trump renames Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America’ amid escalating trade war with Canada

[WASHINGTON] US President Donald Trump renamed Lake Ontario “Lake America” on Thursday (Aug 27), escalating a feud with Canada that has already spawned tariffs on tens of billions of dollars in cross-border trade.

Trump’s executive order on Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes of North America, applies to US federal usage about the lake, and does not govern what Canada, international bodies or other organisations call the lake.

Within hours of Trump’s statement, the prime minister of Canada and the Democratic governor of New York State said they would not be changing the name, which is more than 400 years old. New York borders the lake on the US side.

“We’re going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario effective immediately to Lake America,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “The lake change, the Lake of America, was something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, actually.”

Trade talks between the US and Canada collapsed on Aug 22 with each side ‌blaming the ⁠other for derailing three days of intensive negotiations.

Facing the lowest public approval of his term, Trump – who campaigned on a pledge to avoid starting new foreign wars and fight inflation – is struggling to resolve both the trade war his administration initiated with Ottawa as well as the war the US and Israel began against Iran six months ago. Both have played a role in driving up the cost of living for Americans.

‘America is changing’

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the lake’s name predates both Canada and the US as nations.

“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms,” Carney said on social media.

“Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.”

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About 52 per cent of the surface area of Lake Ontario is in Canada, with the remainder in New York.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul responded on social media: “New York won’t be calling it that.”

Phil Scott, the Republican governor of Vermont, which borders Canada and New York State, on Thursday called Trump’s decision “petty and disappointing” on the social media platform X.

Grand Chief Pierre Picard of the Wendat Nation in Quebec issued a statement condemning the change in name, which originates from the Wendat language and means ‘the lake is beautiful, great.’

“President Trump is trying to erase our history,” he said.

“Outraged, appalled, shocked: there are no other words to express how I feel following President Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario ‘Lake America.’“

‘All we need is an ocean’

Trump on Thursday also suggested he would consider trying to rename oceans.

“We have a gulf and we have a lake, now all we need is an ocean, so maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them both,” Trump told reporters.

Since early 2025, Trump has repeatedly taunted Canada about becoming the 51st US state, an idea Canadian leaders have dismissed as ridiculous.

The move is unlikely to smooth any future trade negotiations between the US and Canada as most Canadians view it as unnecessarily provocative and insulting.

Carney has said trade talks faltered over a number of issues, including US negotiators proposing changes that put Canada’s French-language rules at risk, whether US tariff relief would apply to medium- or heavy-duty trucks, and demands to curtail Canada’s ability to forge new trade deals.

US officials reject that characterisation, saying Carney’s decision to reject the deal was a political choice.

Since returning to office in 2025, Trump has also sought to affix his own name to buildings and other symbols of American power, including prominent Washington buildings, a planned class of Navy warships, a visa programme for wealthy foreigners, a government-run prescription drug website, and federal savings accounts for children.

Trump also ordered the Gulf of Mexico renamed to Gulf of America in January 2025. After that, it took about two weeks for the US Board on Geographic Names, as part of the Department of the Interior, to update the official federal nomenclature in the Geographic Names Information System to reflect the changes, effective immediately for federal use.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll in May showed 72 per cent of Americans had a favourable view of Canada - a higher share than any other country in the survey had, including Germany and Mexico - and about twice Trump’s own approval rating. REUTERS