President Donald Trump has signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” a move that Canada rejected immediately as bilateral relations between the two countries deteriorated to their lowest point in years.
The order, signed Thursday in the Oval Office, gives the Department of the Interior 30 days to update the name change with the Geographic Names Information Service, the official repository of domestic geographic names in the United States. Trump said the change was effective immediately. He has broad discretion over how the United States recognises landmarks. Other countries do not have to follow.
The renaming follows the collapse of trade talks last week. The United States imposed new 50% tariffs on $20bn (C$28bn) worth of Canadian goods. Canada will implement “dollar for dollar” counter tariffs next month.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the change outright. “Things must be called by their name, and this lake is called Lake Ontario - today and forever,” he said. Carney noted that the name Lake Ontario could be traced back more than 400 years, predating both the Canadian Confederation and the US Declaration of Independence. “We know that the United States is changing,” he said. “Their trade relations, their foreign policy, their national monuments, their hydronyms.” Canadian women and men also know that things must be called by their name, he added.
A familiar pattern
The move mirrors a similar order Trump signed in 2025 renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. Mexico rejected that change, arguing that a single country cannot rename a shared body of international water. The dispute led to a legal battle between Mexico and Google, which renamed the gulf in its maps application. Google Maps users in the United States see “Gulf of America,” while those in Mexico see “Gulf of Mexico.” Users in other countries see “Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America).” The White House also blocked Associated Press reporters from presidential events after the agency refused to adopt the name “Gulf of America” in its coverage. The AP sued the Trump administration, and that legal battle is ongoing.
There is no universally recognised international body that sets the names of international waters. Canadian officials dismissed Trump’s move. Ontario Premier Doug Ford wrote: “It’s Lake Ontario to Canadians and the rest of the world. Now and forever.” Other premiers and ministers made similar statements.
Mixed reactions in the United States
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum applauded the order. “We’re on it, Mr. President!” he wrote. He said the places and waters that border the nation and support its economy should reflect the greatness of the United States, adding that the US Geological Survey “maps our country for the world to see, and we are PROUD to implement your Executive Order to rename LAKE AMERICA.”
Democratic lawmakers pushed back. Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan, the state that borders four of the five Great Lakes, said she would introduce a bill in Congress to nullify the name change and called Trump’s order “idiotic.” She wrote that the Great Lakes are a shared treasure that generations of Americans and Canadians have worked together to protect. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, whose state is the sole US state bordering Lake Ontario, said her state would not be calling it Lake America.
Trump said the renaming was not a direct message to Canada. He said America’s northern neighbour “has been ripping us off for a long time on trade.” Relations between the two countries have fallen to new lows, with insults thrown back and forth over the past week. There was a hint on Thursday, however, that room remained for a return to the negotiating table. Canadian US trade minister Dominic LeBlanc said the United States had withdrawn some of its demands around French labelling requirements, one of the sticking points. The United States has maintained it never made demands about language. Both sides have accused the other of demanding last-minute changes that caused the breakdown in trade negotiations.
The names of four of the Great Lakes, Ontario, Huron, Michigan, and Erie, originate from indigenous words. Lake Superior was named after an anglicised French word. Lake Ontario, the smallest of the Great Lakes, borders both the Canadian province and the US state of New York.