US President Donald Trump has renamed Lake Ontario “Lake America”, escalating tensions with Canada amid a broader trade dispute between the two countries.
Trump announced the change on Thursday while signing an executive order at the White House. However, the order applies only to US federal usage and does not require Canada, international organisations or other bodies to adopt the new name.
Lake Ontario, one of North America’s five Great Lakes, borders both the US state of New York and Canada, with about 52% of its surface area located in Canada.
“We’re going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario effective immediately to Lake America,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
The decision was quickly rejected by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
Carney said the lake’s name predates both Canada and the United States, insisting that Canadians would continue to call it Lake Ontario.
“Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario then, now and always,” Carney said in a social media post.
Hochul also rejected the change, saying: “New York won’t be calling it that.”
Vermont Governor Phil Scott described the move as “petty and disappointing”.
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The Wendat Nation in Quebec also condemned the renaming. Grand Chief Pierre Picard said the decision amounted to an attempt to erase the community’s history, noting that the name Ontario originates from the Wendat language.
The move comes amid strained US-Canada relations following the collapse of trade negotiations last week. The two countries have imposed tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of goods, with both sides blaming the other for the failure of recent talks.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada could become the 51st US state, a proposal Canadian leaders have strongly rejected.
President Trump also suggested on Thursday that he could consider renaming the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The president previously ordered the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the “Gulf of America” in January 2025. The US Board on Geographic Names subsequently updated federal records to reflect the change for official US government use.
