President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America as a slight after trade negotiations with Canada broke down.
The move was predictably polarizing, energizing Trump’s allies while being denounced by his critics at home and abroad, most of all in Canada.
Here’s everything to know about Trump’s latest international renaming project:
How did Trump rename Lake Ontario?
On Thursday, Trump signed an order titled “Honoring the American history of the Great Lakes and renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America.” The decree renames one of the four Great Lakes, while providing a legal and philosophical justification for the act. First and foremost, it paints the move as stemming from one of Trump’s first executive orders, signed on the first day of his second term, “Restoring Names that Honor American Greatness.”
Trump then argued that the renaming was based on a utilitarian argument, saying the United States does more than Canada to protect and maintain the Great Lakes.
“The United States is the greatest protector of the Great Lakes, including the body of water currently known as Lake Ontario,” he wrote, pointing out that the U.S. Coast Guard supplies nine of the 11 icebreakers operating in the Great Lakes. “Without the security and investment provided by the United States, this freshwater system would not be open for shipping, recreation, and responsible use to the same extent as it is today.
“The United States has invested nearly $4 billion in protecting the Great Lakes freshwater ecosystem in the last decade, while Canada has invested far less in similar initiatives over the same period,” he wrote.
The order then went into how the lake is a “tremendous asset” to the U.S. and detailed its extensive history as a key artery of U.S. trade and industry.
He directed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, in coordination with the Board on Geographic Names, to take the necessary steps to rename the lake over the next 30 days.
Why did Trump rename Lake Ontario?
U.S. relations with Canada have sunk to the lowest point in modern history since Trump took office, both due to his more assertive stance, verbal provocations, and ideological disagreements between the Trump administration and the Liberal government.
After several months of relative inactivity, tensions flared last month when Trump signed three proclamations imposing 50% tariffs on a variety of Canadian goods on July 20, which were set to take effect in mid-August. Negotiators worked through August to strike a favorable trade deal, and Trump even delayed the tariffs’ implementation as negotiations made progress. Just hours before the deadline on Aug. 21, negotiations entirely collapsed, and the 50% tariffs took effect on nearly $20 billion in Canadian exports.
Each side blamed the other for talks collapsing, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed “dollar for dollar” retaliatory tariffs, which are set to take effect on Sept. 8.
A war of words has ensued, with rhetoric escalating this week. Raising the stakes, Trump began floating the idea of the Lake Ontario name change on Tuesday, which rapidly solidified into the concrete move on Thursday.
Speaking from the White House on Thursday, Trump complained about Canada more broadly.
“Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade,” he said. “Very sadly, even the military. You know, we defend Canada for nothing. We don’t get anything. They don’t pay us to defend Canada, but we defend Canada, and they understand that.”
What does the name change apply to?
Trump’s decree is only binding for the U.S. government and has no hold on foreign governments, international bodies, or private companies. Canada, unsurprisingly, has made it clear it will stick by the current name.
“The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, 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,” Carney wrote in a post on X.
“We know that America is changing,” he wrote. “Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms. Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.”
While the matter is clear for the Canadian and U.S. federal governments, many private companies in the U.S. are less certain. No companies are legally required to change the name, but many may acquiesce over previous disputes stemming from Trump’s other name-changing ventures.
Google Maps and Bing Maps are likely to change the name for U.S. users, as they previously changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in response to last year’s name change, a move Google Maps said was “consistent with our longstanding practices.”
Many companies may find it more convenient to go along with the spelling, given the drawn-out legal drama experienced by the Associated Press when it refused to change its naming conventions. In response, the Trump administration barred it from major press events, triggering a lawsuit on First Amendment grounds.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government,” the lawsuit read. “The Constitution does not allow the government to control speech. Allowing such government control and retaliation to stand is a threat to every American’s freedom.”
TRUMP SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER TO RENAME LAKE ONTARIO TO LAKE AMERICA
White House spokesman Steven Cheung decried the outlet over the lawsuit, saying, “They are clearly suffering from a severe, debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted their peanut-sized brains.”
Litigation is still ongoing in the case.