Trump asked Apple to change Lake Ontario to 'Lake America' on its maps: U.S. official

Trump asked Apple to change Lake Ontario to 'Lake America' on its maps: U.S. official

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says Apple Maps could 'soon' change the name to 'Lake America'

A senior U.S. government official says President Donald Trump has asked Apple to change the name of Lake Ontario to "Lake America" on its maps, as the renaming push from Washington continues to roil Canadians amid simmering trade tensions.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum told Fox Business on Monday that Trump "reached out to Apple directly" about the renaming.

"So I'm sure that we may be seeing that change coming up, coming up soon, to Lake America."

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Trump signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America" on Thursday, just days after Canada-U.S. trade talks broke off and steep United States tariffs were imposed on a range of Canadian goods.

Canada hit back with retaliatory levies, which are set to come into effect next week.

Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the name change, saying in a social media post that the lake — one of the five Great Lakes, between Ontario and New York state — will be known as Lake Ontario "now and always."

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But Google announced on Saturday that Google Maps users in the United States would see "Lake America" instead of Lake Ontario because the platform reflects "name changes in official government sources."

"The U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has formally changed the name for 'Lake Ontario' to 'Lake America' in the United States," Google said.

The tech giant said Google Maps users in Canada would continue to see Lake Ontario, but maps on several websites for Ontario and Canadian entities appeared to display Lake America on Sunday.

On Monday, several of those affected maps — including on the Hydro One and LCBO websites in Ontario — were once again displaying Lake Ontario.

Apple did not immediately respond to CBC's request for comment on Monday afternoon about whether Trump asked for the lake to be renamed on Apple Maps and whether it plans to make the change.

When accessing Apple Maps in Canada on Monday afternoon, the platform still labelled the lake as Lake Ontario.

Trump signed a similar executive order in 2025 renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

The order applies only to U.S. federal documents and geographic services, but some online map services and U.S. news agencies have taken to calling it the Gulf of America.

Apple Maps currently labels the area as "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)."

Jillian Kestler-D'Amours is a senior writer at CBC based in Montreal. You can reach her at jillian.kestler-d.amours@cbc.ca.

With files from The Canadian Press