WASHINGTON D.C., United States, Aug 28 — US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order seeking to change the name of 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.
Text of the executive order says it gives the US Department of the Interior 30 days to update the name change with the Geographic Names Information Service – the official repository of domestic geographic names in the US.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney noted the name Lake Ontario can be traced back more than 400 years, adding in a social media post on Thursday that preceded the formation of the Canadian Confederation and the US Declaration of Independence.
“We know that the United States is changing. Their trade relations, their foreign policy, their national monuments, their hydronyms,” he wrote. “Canadian women and men also know that things must be called by their name, and this lake is called Lake Ontario – today and forever.”
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 legal dispute between Mexico and tech giant Google, which renamed the gulf in its maps application.
In that case, Google Maps users in the US see “Gulf of America”, while those in Mexico see the “Gulf of Mexico”. Those in other countries see the “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)”.
The White House at the time also blocked Associated Press reporters from presidential events over the news agency’s refusal to adopt the name “Gulf of America” in its coverage. The AP sued the Trump administration in response, and that legal battle is ongoing.
0:55Lake Ontario to Lake America: Can Trump rename it?
There is no universally recognised international body setting the names of international waters. While the US president has broad discretion over how his country officially recognises landmarks, other countries do not have to follow.
Canada does not have to recognise name changes made by other countries and officials there have dismissed the idea.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford wrote on social media, “It’s Lake Ontario to Canadians and the rest of the world. Now and forever.”
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston agreed, saying “We’re into some real foolishness now. It’s Lake Ontario, buddy.”
“We’ll always call it Lake Ontario,” said Industry Minister Melanie Joly on Tuesday.
The names of four of the Great Lakes – Ontario, Huron, Michigan and Erie – originate from indigenous words. Lake Superior was named after an anglicised French word. Lake Ontario, the smallest of the Great Lakes, borders both the Canadian province and the US state of New York.
As he signed the order on Thursday in the Oval Office, Trump said it wasn’t a direct message to Canada, but that America’s northern neighbour “has been ripping us off for a long time on trade”.
Trump said he’d been thinking about renaming the lake “for a long time”.
“So if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake,” Trump said.
“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.”
The name change request comes amid a trade dispute that has seen US-Canada relations fall to new lows, with insults thrown back-and-forth between the Trump administration and Canadian officials over the past week.
There was a hint on Thursday that there was room for a return to the negotiating table sometime in the future.
Canadian US trade minister, Dominic LeBlanc, said in a post on X that the US had withdrawn some of its demands around labelling requirements in French “and is confirming that measures to promote French language and Canadian culture will not be subject to future US trade actions”.
“We look forward to further constructive US clarifications on their other positions, which would create the possibility of a mutually beneficial trade agreement that respects Canadian sovereignty”.
Trade talks collapsed at the last minute late on Friday night, with both sides accusing the other of demanding last-minute changes to a tentative deal.
Democratic lawmaker Debbie Dingell of Michigan, the US state that borders four of the five Great Lakes, said that she would introduce a bill in Congress to nullify the name change, calling Trump’s order “idiotic”.
She wrote, “The Great Lakes are a shared treasure that generations of Americans and Canadians have worked together to protect”.
Other Democratic lawmakers in the US also criticised the order on social media, calling for the Trump administration to get back to negotiating on a trade deal. Some mocked Trump’s idea and posted their own ideas to change the names of other landmarks.
Wisconsin’s governor joked, “I just renamed Lake Michigan Lake Wisconsin,” in a social media post with a video of himself signing a napkin on one of the Great Lakes. “See, I can sign napkins that say things, too,” he added.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said her state, the sole US state bordering Lake Ontario, “won’t be calling it” Lake America.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum applauded the move, writing, “We’re on it, Mr. President!”
“The places and waters that border our nation and support our economy should reflect the greatness of the United States,” he said, adding that the US Geological Survey “maps our country for the world to see, and we are PROUD to implement your Executive Order to rename LAKE AMERICA”.
