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Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America" amid trade tensions with Canada

Source: Xinhua | 2026-08-28 | Editor:Jennifer

This photo taken on Jan. 21, 2025 shows the frozen Lake Ontario in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Zou Zheng/Xinhua)

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order directing the Department of the Interior to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America," as trade tensions between the United States and Canada continue to escalate.

"We're gonna to be changing the name of Lake Ontario, effective immediately, to Lake America," Trump said in the Oval Office before signing the order.

The move came just two days after Trump said on social media that the United States is giving "serious consideration" to changing the name of Lake Ontario to "Lake America," citing that "we don't expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer."

Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes of North America, straddles the U.S.-Canada border, with the Canadian province of Ontario to the north and the U.S. state of New York to the south.

Trump's attempt to rename the lake came as a recent breakdown in trade talks between the two countries led to new retaliatory tariffs.

The United States and Canada failed to reach a trade deal on Aug. 21, and the United States imposed a 50-percent tariff on about 20 billion U.S. dollars' worth of Canadian goods on Aug. 22.

Canada responded by announcing "dollar-for-dollar" retaliatory tariffs on imports from the United States, set to take effect on Sept. 8.

Canadian officials have already said they will not recognize the new name. Canadian Minister of Industry Melanie Joly said that Canada will always call the water body Lake Ontario.

The latest executive order marks the second time Trump has challenged the longstanding name of an international body of water and unilaterally renamed it for U.S. use.

On Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order directing the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America," a move that drew opposition from Mexico and others.

At Thursday's signing event, Trump touted his earlier effort to rename the Gulf of Mexico.

"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," Trump said. 

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