Trump has renamed Lake Ontario as Lake America

Just a few days after declaring the Strait of Hormuz ‘US territory’, Donald Trump signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario – situated on the border between the Canadian province of the same name and the state of New York – as ‘Lake America’. The announcement comes after weeks of tension between the two countries due to the introduction of new tariffs by Washington, which were initially suspended in an attempt to reach an agreement but then came into force last weekend following the failure to reach a deal. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has categorically rejected the name change, stating that the current name predates both countries and is set to remain in use “then, now and forever”.

The executive order, to be implemented within 30 days, justifies Trump’s decision on the grounds that the lake is deeper – and therefore has a greater volume – on the American side. However, jurisdiction over the lake is governed by a bilateral treaty (‘Boundary Waters Treaty’) dating from 1909, as a result of which Trump’s decision will apply only to official maps and documents of the United States government.

The White House chief claims that the idea of changing the name had been on his mind “for a very long time”. When asked by the press whether this was a retaliatory measure against its neighbour in the context of the trade dispute, Trump replied: “Canadian officials have treated us very badly. They are unpleasant people.” In the past, the US president had also stated that Canada should become the 51st state of the United States.

The words ‘Lake America’ already appear on a map hanging in the Oval Office, which shows the body of water coloured in the Republican Party’s red. Next to it, on another map, the words ‘make the Great Lakes great again’ stand out (the reference is to the Great Lakes region, the world’s largest system of freshwater lakes, of which Lake Ontario is a part). The Democratic Party’s response was not long in coming; on its X account, it commented: “The cost of living is too high, and Trump is changing the names of the lakes”.

By January 2025, Trump had already unilaterally changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. “We’ve got a gulf and we’ve got a lake. Now all we need is an ocean. So perhaps we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Perhaps we’ll change both of them,” he said.