![\"President](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/19745685_trump-lake-america-signing-img.png\"\/)
<\/p>\nWASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday 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 that updated the lake’s name for the U.S. geographic naming service. Trump cannot force Canada to follow his preferred naming convention, however.<\/p>\n
The move is reminiscent of his move last year to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the \u201cGulf of America.'”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump listens to a question from a reporter in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in Washington.<\/p>\n
AP Photo\/Manuel Balce Ceneta<\/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
He told reporters that Canada is \u201cthe worst\u201d to deal with on trade. \u201cThey feel entitled and we can’t have that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The president 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
The U.S. and Canada share borders along multiple Great Lakes, including Lake Ontario.<\/p>\n
![\"City](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/19745659_AP26236612149794.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
City Councillor Renaldo Agostino looks at the Detroit skyline across the Detroit River Monday, Aug. 24, 2026, in Windsor, Ontario (AP Photo\/Mike Householder)<\/p>\n
The official U.S.-Canada border stretches across the water between Lake Ontario\u2019s northern and southern shores. The body of water forms much of New York State\u2019s coastline and separates Buffalo from Toronto, the capital of the province of Ontario. Toronto is Canada\u2019s most populous city and Ontario its most populous province.<\/p>\n
Ontario is also the single largest export destination for more than a dozen U.S. states.<\/p>\n
The lake\u2019s name comes from the Huron Indigenous people\u2019s word \u201coniatar\u00ed:io,\u201d which means \u201clake of shining waters,\u201d and it predates European settlement in the region. The province, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.<\/p>\n
The International Hydrographic Organization \u2014 of which both the United States and Canada are members \u2014 works to ensure that the world\u2019s seas, oceans and navigable waters are surveyed and charted uniformly, and also names some of them. But there is no single international body that determines names of international bodies of water.<\/p>\n
This a developing story. Please check back for updates.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday he is renaming Lake Ontario to be known as \u201cLake America\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[124655,9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-331245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-124655","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}