Trump renames Lake Ontario 'Lake America' amid Canada trade war

U.S. President Donald Trump renamed Lake Ontario "Lake America" on Thursday, escalating a trade feud with Canada that has already produced tariffs on tens of billions of dollars in cross-border trade.

The executive order, signed in the Oval Office, applies only to U.S. federal usage of the lake's name.

Can the US rename Lake Ontario?

Trump's order changes the name only for U.S. federal purposes. It does not affect what Canada, international bodies or other organisations call the lake, which has carried the name Ontario for more than 400 years. Canada's prime minister and New York's governor both said within hours that they would keep using the original name.

"We're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario effective immediately to Lake America," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "The lake change, the Lake of America, was something I've been thinking about for a long time, actually."

Why is Trump in a trade war with Canada?

Trade talks between the U.S. and Canada collapsed last week, with each side blaming the other for derailing three days of intensive negotiations. Trump, who is facing the lowest public approval of his term and campaigned on a pledge to avoid new foreign wars and fight inflation, is struggling to resolve both the Canada trade war his administration started and the war the U.S. and Israel began against Iran six months ago. Both conflicts have driven up the cost of living for Americans.

What did Canada's prime minister say about the name change?

Canadian Prime Minister Mark 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 the surface area of Lake Ontario sits in Canada, with the remainder in New York. New York Governor Kathy Hochul responded on social media: "New York won't be calling it that."

Vermont's Republican Governor Phil Scott called Trump's decision "petty and disappointing" on X. Grand Chief Pierre Picard of the Wendat Nation in Quebec condemned the change, noting the name originates from the Wendat language and means "the lake is beautiful, great." "President Trump is trying to erase our history," he 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.'"

What else has Trump renamed?

Trump on Thursday also suggested he could rename 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. Maybe we'll change them both," he told reporters.

Since early 2025, Trump has repeatedly floated the idea that Canada could become the 51st U.S. state, a suggestion Canadian leaders have dismissed as ridiculous. Most Canadians view the lake renaming as unnecessarily provocative and insulting, making it unlikely to smooth future trade negotiations.

Carney has said the talks faltered over several issues: U.S. negotiators proposing changes that put Canada's French-language rules at risk, whether U.S. tariff relief would apply to medium- or heavy-duty trucks, and demands to curtail Canada's ability to forge new trade deals. U.S. officials reject that characterisation, saying Carney's decision to reject the deal was a political choice.

Since returning to office last year, Trump has also sought to affix his own name to buildings and other symbols of American power, including prominent Washington buildings, a planned class of Navy warships, a visa programme for wealthy foreigners, a government-run prescription drug website, and federal savings accounts for children.

Trump also ordered the Gulf of Mexico renamed the Gulf of America in January 2025. It took about two weeks for the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, part of the Department of the Interior, to update the official federal nomenclature in the Geographic Names Information System, effective immediately for federal use.

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