US President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Lake Ontario will be known as “Lake America" within the United States, making the change as tensions with Canada escalate over trade, according to The Associated Press.
Trump signed an executive order at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office instructing the Interior Department to update the lake's name in the US geographic naming system. The order gives the department 30 days to implement the change, despite Trump's assertion that it was “official, effective immediately."
Trump said he had “notified all of the various people that we have to notify. So, we’ve done everything that you have to do."
The president has promoted the renaming idea in recent days as Washington and Ottawa have imposed retaliatory tariffs on one another. The US announced 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend after trade negotiations collapsed. Canada responded with tariffs on $20 billion in US products, including steel, dairy goods, appliances and agricultural equipment.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Canada since returning to the White House last year and has suggested that the country become the 51st US state.
During the signing ceremony, a map of the Great Lakes displayed behind Trump labeled Lake Ontario as “Lake America" in large red letters. A second map carried the message, “MAKING THE GREAT LAKES EVEN GREATER."
Trump said his decision was not intended to convey a specific geopolitical message, but argued that “Canada’s been ripping us off for a long time" over trade and military matters.
“They wanted to be treated like a state and they’re not a state," the president said. “We just can’t do that anymore."
“We love the people of Canada," Trump added. “I don’t think their representatives do, an appropriate job. Maybe they’ll change. I really don’t know. It doesn’t make much difference."
Canadian officials quickly dismissed the move. Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston wrote on social media, “We’re into some real foolishness now. It’s Lake Ontario, buddy."
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has repeatedly clashed with Trump, dismissed the proposed renaming earlier this week as “a lot of rhetoric."
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded in a post on social media, writing, “The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big"."
“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," added Carney.
“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms. Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario - then, now and always," concluded the Prime Minister.
Trump's latest renaming effort follows his decision last year to change the US government's designation of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America."
After signing the order and holding it up for photographers, Trump said, “And we filed all the necessary papers, documents, everything else."
He also suggested that additional bodies of water could eventually be renamed.
“So, if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean," Trump said. “So maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them."