Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario as ’Lake America’

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday decreeing that Lake Ontario will henceforth be called “Lake America” in retaliation for the counter-tariffs announced by the Canadian government.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order directing the interior secretary to rename Lake Ontario to « Lake America, » as the trade war with Canada persists.

Trump cannot force Canada to follow his preferred naming convention, however.

The move is reminiscent of his move last year to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

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 Lake America.

He told reporters that Canada is the worst to deal with on trade. They feel entitled and we can't have that.

The U.S. president has been floating the idea of the name change in recent days as the U.S. announced it was imposing 50 per cent tariffs on $28 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down.

Trump has been needling America's northern neighbour 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.

The U.S. and Canada share borders along multiple Great Lakes, including Lake Ontario.

The official U.S.-Canada border stretches across the water between Lake Ontario's northern and southern shores.

The lake's name comes from the Huron Indigenous people's word oniatarí:io, which means lake of shining waters, and it predates European settlement in the region. The province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.

The International Hydrographic Organization — of which both the United States and Canada are members — works to ensure that the world's 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.