Trump Signs Order To Change The Name Of Lake Ontario To Lake America – The Epoch Times

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Aug. 27 to officially rename Lake Ontario as Lake America, effective immediately.

“Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade, very sadly,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after signing the order. “Even the military, you know, we defend Canada for nothing. We don’t get anything.”

He added that Canada doesn’t “pay for anything” but wants to be treated like a state, but it’s “not a state.”

The U.S. Department of the Interior will update the Geographic Names Information System to reflect the new name.

“Make the Great Lakes Great Again!” wrote U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum after issuing an order to his department to implement the change.

The U.S. president issued the executive order as tensions between the two countries continue to escalate over tariffs and trade.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a statement on Aug. 27 that the lake’s historic name is Lake Ontario and that it will remain the same “then, now and always.”

He said the lake was named after the Wendat word “Ontari’io,” which 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,” he said. “We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms.”

Trump first suggested the idea of renaming the lake on Aug. 25 after Ontario Premier Doug Ford criticized him with insults and profane language over the new U.S. tariffs on Canada on Aug. 24. Trump subsequently issued statements of his own with insults directed at Ford.

When asked about the issue, Ford said on Aug. 25 that it’s best that the two sides tone down the rhetoric, noting, “[Things] got a little personal yesterday between the president and myself.”

This is not the first time Trump has renamed a body of water. In January 2025, on his first day in office, he issued an executive order for all U.S. agencies to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

“We have a gulf, and we have a lake—now all we need is an ocean,” Trump said on Aug. 27. “Maybe we‘ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them both.”

Trade Negotiations Collapse

Negotiations between Canada and the United States broke down on Aug. 21, leading to new 50 percent U.S. tariffs on nearly $20 billion of Canadian products taking effect on Aug. 22.

Trump also announced on Aug. 24 his plan to impose new 50 percent tariffs on all Canadian vehicles and auto parts beginning in 2027, after Canada announced its intention to impose dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs against the United States.

“We love the people of Canada. I don’t think their representatives do an appropriate job,” Trump said.

In his speech announcing his government’s plan to impose retaliatory tariffs on the United States, Carney said on Aug. 22 that Canada had been working “in good faith” with the United States toward a trade deal, but that the deal Washington offered was unacceptable to his government, so he instructed his team to walk away on Aug. 21.

“Canada is becoming stronger and less dependent on America,” Carney said.

Canada’s counter-tariffs come into effect on Sept. 8.

Matthew Horwood contributed to this report.