{"id":582391,"date":"2026-08-27T22:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T22:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/582391\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T22:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T22:50:14","slug":"trump-signs-order-renaming-lake-ontario-as-lake-america-in-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/582391\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America’ in US"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump said he is renaming Lake Ontario to be known as \u201cLake America\u201d in the United States as he exacerbates his trade war with Canada.<\/p>\n

The Republican president signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the US geographic naming service. Trump cannot force Canada to follow his preferred naming convention<\/a>, however.<\/p>\n

Trump has been floating the idea of the name change in recent days as the US announced it was imposing 50% tariffs on US$20 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down<\/a>. Trump has been needling America\u2019s northern neighbour since he returned to the White House last year, suggesting the ally with whom the US once had warm relations should instead be absorbed as the 51st state.<\/p>\n

Canada responded to Trump\u2019s import taxes this week by imposing retaliatory tariffs<\/a> on US$20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People look out across Lake Ontario from the harbor in Toronto (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

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 \u201cLake America\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the President was another map with the words, \u201cMAKING THE GREAT LAKES EVEN GREATER\u201d.<\/p>\n

The lake is one of the Great Lakes that the US and Canada share a border with.<\/p>\n

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected Trump\u2019s move, invoking the lake\u2019s Indigenous roots while pointedly casting the episode as part of a transformation of the United States under Trump.<\/p>\n

In a social media post, Carney noted that Lake Ontario takes its name from the Wendat word \u201cOntari\u2019io,\u201d meaning \u201cthe lake is beautiful, the lake is big,\u201d and said the name predates both the Canadian Confederation and the US Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms,\u201d Carney said.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario \u2014 then, now and always<\/p>\n

There is no single international body that determines names of international bodies of water, and Trump has wide latitude over how the US government recognises geographic places and landmarks.<\/p>\n

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has traded insults with Trump<\/a>, this week brushed aside the prospect of Trump changing the lake’s name as \u201ca lot of rhetoric”.<\/p>\n

The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people\u2019s word \u201coniatar\u00ed:io,\u201d that means \u201clake of shining waters\u201d. The province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.<\/p>\n

Trump said that while his action was not meant to send any particular geopolitical message, \u201cCanada\u2019s been ripping us off for a long time\u201d on trade and military issues.<\/p>\n

\"Rolled<\/p>\n

Rolled coils of steel sit in the yard at the ArcelorMittal Dofasco steel plant in Hamilton, Ontario on Thursday, August 20, 2026. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wanted to be treated like a state and they\u2019re not a state,\u201d the President said. \u201cWe just can\u2019t do that anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love the people of Canada,\u201d Trump added. \u201cI don\u2019t think their representatives do, an appropriate job. Maybe they\u2019ll change. I really don\u2019t know. It doesn\u2019t make much difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move is reminiscent of his move last year to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the \u201cGulf of America”.<\/p>\n

Trump scribbled his name with a Sharpie pen on the executive order then held it up for the cameras, offering, \u201cAnd we filed all the necessary papers, documents, everything else\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve notified all of the various people that we have to notify. So, we\u2019ve done everything that you have to do,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd this is official, effective immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also suggested his push to rename bodies of water may not be finished.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean,\u201d Trump said. \u201cSo maybe we\u2019ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and or the Pacific. Maybe we\u2019ll change them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including the investigation into an Auckland double homicide, and why Donald Trump\u2019s trying to rename a lake. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump said he is renaming Lake Ontario to be known as \u201cLake America\u201d in the United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[65,219,42,43,64,40,38,41,39,66],"class_list":["post-582391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-economy","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-us-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}