President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order meant to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America,” taking his apparent jab at Canada one step further as a trade war between the two countries escalates.The president said the name change was “effective immediately” during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office. The executive order directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to update the Geographic Names Information Service to reflect the name change.
When asked by reporters about the move, Trump said he was sending “no message” to Canada with the name change.“Lake of America was something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” the president said. “Actually, as you know, we took something called the Gulf of Mexico, we changed it, and now it’s very routinely the Gulf of America.”
“If you think about it, we have a Gulf, and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean,” Trump added, floating a potential name change for the Atlantic or Pacific ocean.The executive order argues that because more of the lake’s volume lies within territory claimed by the United States, Trump has the right to unilaterally change its name. The name change came two days after Trump had threatened to do so in a Truth Social post, explicitly connecting the move to trade negotiations between the U.S. and Canada that flamed out at the last minute Friday night.The U.S. and Canada have been entrenched in a trade war since Trump imposed tariffs on America’s northern neighbor in early 2025. In February, the Supreme Court struck down the sweeping international duties that the president levied through a string of executive orders.
