Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday in the Oval Office directing the Department of the Interior to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America, tying the move to the wider Russia-Ukraine war-era trade fight with Canada. The order targets a landmark shared by Canada and the United States while tariffs and retaliation continue to hit cross-border commerce.
Trump said, "I’ve been thinking about a long time" and added, "Canada treats us very badly" after summoning the press pool to watch the signing. He also said, "People oftentimes they’ll ask me who’s the worst to deal with on trade, and I said that’s easy. Canada, they are the worst, and they feel entitled, and just we can’t have that."
Toronto, Ottawa and Washington trade blows
Mark Carney answered with a defense of the existing name, writing that Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io and that it means "the lake is beautiful, the lake is big." Carney said the name is more than 400 years old and predates both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. Carney also wrote, "Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always."
The dispute lands after a 50% tariff on several Canadian imports kicked in on Saturday, with Trump also threatening another round of 50% duties on Canadian steel, trucks, cars and auto parts to take effect in the new year. Carney responded with 25-50% tariffs on hundreds of US goods, turning a naming order into part of a broader trade clash rather than a symbolic gesture alone.
Western New York feels the pressure
Tim Kennedy, a Democratic congressman representing a Western New York district that borders Ontario, said Canadian tourism to New York is down 26 percent and Canadian spending is down 28 percent. Kennedy said, "If Donald Trump spent half as much time trying to make life more affordable as he does trying to rename bodies of water, working families might actually be able to afford their rent, utility bills, and food costs." He also said, "His pathetic proposal to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America” proves what we already know him to be: a petty, vindictive, failed president."
Kennedy added, "By declaring economic war on Canada, our strongest ally and New York’s largest trading partner, President Trump is waging that same war on border communities like Western New York, and we have been paying the price." The practical issue for readers on both sides of the border is whether federal agencies begin using Lake America in maps, records and references; the order directs the Department of the Interior, but the source does not say that the new name has entered official federal use.
Trump’s naming pattern
Trump had already issued an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and he joked that the Atlantic and the Pacific might also be renamed. That makes the Lake Ontario order part of an expanding pattern, but the lake is different because it sits on the Canada and the United States border and the name dispute now collides with tariffs affecting trade talks and nearby communities.
For border residents, the immediate consequence is not a new shoreline sign but a deeper split between federal language and everyday use. Carney’s line leaves the clearest marker of where that argument stands: Lake Ontario remains the name Canada is using, while Trump has ordered Washington to call it Lake America.
