Trump Orders Lake Ontario Renamed ‘Lake America’ Amid Canada Trade Dispute

Federal Name Change Draws Immediate Reaction

WASHINGTON, Aug. 27 — U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that Lake Ontario will be renamed “Lake America” for U.S. federal usage, escalating a dispute with Canada that has already been marked by tariffs on tens of billions of dollars in cross-border trade.

The executive order applies to how the U.S. federal government refers to the lake. It does not govern what Canada, international bodies or other organizations call Lake Ontario, one of North America’s five Great Lakes.

Trump announced the decision to reporters in the Oval Office.

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

Within hours, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and New York Governor Kathy Hochul said they would not adopt the new name. Lake Ontario, whose name is more than 400 years old, borders New York on the U.S. side.

Canada and New York Reject the Change

Carney said the lake’s name predates both Canada and the United States 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.”

About 52% of Lake Ontario’s surface area is in Canada, while the remainder is in New York.

Hochul also rejected the change, saying 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, described Trump’s decision as “petty and disappointing” in a post on the social media platform X.

Grand Chief Pierre Picard of the Wendat Nation in Quebec condemned the renaming. He said the existing name originates from the Wendat language and means “the lake is beautiful, great.”

“President Trump is trying to erase our history,” Picard 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.’”

Trade Tensions Form the Wider Context

The naming dispute comes as trade negotiations between the United States and Canada have collapsed, with each side blaming the other for derailing three days of intensive talks.

Carney has said the talks faltered over several issues, including U.S. proposals affecting Canada’s French-language rules, whether tariff relief would apply to medium- or heavy-duty trucks, and demands that could limit Canada’s ability to forge new trade agreements.

U.S. officials rejected that characterization, saying Carney’s decision to reject the proposed deal was a political choice.

The United States and Canada have also been locked in a broader trade dispute involving tariffs on tens of billions of dollars in cross-border commerce. The name change is unlikely to ease future negotiations, as many Canadians view the move as unnecessarily provocative and insulting.

Since early 2025, Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada could become the 51st U.S. state, an idea Canadian leaders have dismissed as ridiculous.

Trump Suggests Further Geographic Renaming

Trump also raised the possibility of seeking new names for 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,” Trump told reporters. “Maybe we’ll change them both.”

The Lake Ontario order follows Trump’s January 2025 directive renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America for U.S. federal usage. According to the Reuters report, it took about two weeks for the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, within the Department of the Interior, to update the federal Geographic Names Information System after that change.

Since returning to office, Trump has also sought to place his name or preferred branding on buildings and other symbols of American power, including prominent Washington buildings, a planned class of Navy warships, a visa program for wealthy foreigners, a government-run prescription drug website and federal savings accounts for children.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll in May found that 72% of Americans had a favorable view of Canada, a higher share than for any other country included in the survey, including Germany and Mexico, and about twice Trump’s own approval rating.