Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario as 'Lake America' in the United
States
[August 28, 2026]
By MICHELLE L. PRICE and WILL WEISSERT
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he is renaming
Lake Ontario to be known as “Lake America” in the United States as he
escalates his trade war with Canada.
The Republican president signed an executive order directing the
Interior Department to update the lake's name in the U.S. geographic
naming service. Trump cannot force Canada to follow along, however.
Trump has been floating the idea of the name change in recent days as
the U.S. announced it was imposing 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of
Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke
down. Trump has been needling America’s northern neighbor since he
returned to the White House last year, suggesting the ally with whom the
U.S. once had warm relations should instead be absorbed as the 51st
state.
Canada responded to Trump’s import taxes this week by imposing
retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American goods, including
steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.
Trump, who signed the order as he was sitting at the Resolute Desk in
the Oval Office, had a large sign behind him propped on a stand with a
map of the Great Lakes. Over Lake Ontario, in big red letters, the map
read “Lake America.”
On the other side of the president was another map with the words,
“MAKING THE GREAT LAKES EVEN GREATER.”
Trump said as he was signing the order that he'd “notified all of the
various people that we have to notify. So, we’ve done everything that
you have to do.”
“And this is official, effective immediately,” he added.
But the executive order Trump signed shows that the changes are supposed
to be made within 30 days.
Canadian officials dismissed Trump's move.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the move, invoking the
lake’s Indigenous roots and noting that the name predates both Canadian
Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
“Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario —
then, now and always," he wrote.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has traded insults with Trump, said on X:
“It’s Lake Ontario to Canadians and the rest of the world. Now and
forever.”
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said, “We’re into some real foolishness
now. It’s Lake Ontario, buddy.”
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President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office
of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP
Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
The lake is one of multiple Great Lakes that the U.S. and Canada
share borders along. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat whose
state shares a border on the lake, wrote on X in response to the
White House's announcement that, “New York won’t be calling it
that.”
There is no single international body that determines names of
international bodies of water and Trump has wide latitude over how
the U.S. government recognizes geographic places and landmarks.
The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people’s word
“oniatarí:io,” which means “lake of shining waters.” The province of
Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.
Trump said that while his action was not meant to send any
particular geopolitical message, “Canada’s been ripping us off for a
long time” on trade and military issues.
“They wanted to be treated like a state and they’re not a state,”
the president said. “We just can’t do that anymore.”
“We love the people of Canada,” Trump added. “I don’t think their
representatives do, an appropriate job. Maybe they’ll change. I
really don’t know. It doesn’t make much difference.”
The move is reminiscent of his move last year to rename the Gulf of
Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
Trump scribbled his name with a Sharpie pen on the executive order,
then held it up for the cameras, offering, “And we filed all the
necessary papers, documents, everything else.”
He also suggested his push to rename bodies of water may not be
finished.
“So, if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake. Now,
all we need is an ocean,” Trump said. “So maybe we’ll have to change
the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change
them.”
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Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this
report.
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