“President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday afternoon to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” further needling Canada as he engages in a tense trade war with the United States’ northern ally. Flanked in the Oval Office by large maps of the Great Lakes — one titled “Making the Great Lakes”, — write on: www.cnn.com
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday afternoon to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” further needling Canada as he engages in a tense trade war with the United States’ northern ally.
Flanked in the Oval Office by large maps of the Great Lakes — one titled “Making the Great Lakes Even Greater,” with a “Lake America” label over Lake Ontario — Trump said the name change would be “effective immediately.”
“‘Lake of America’ was something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” Trump said. “We have a gulf and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean. So, maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them both.”
Trump has wide latitude over how the US government refers to geographic landmarks, though he can’t force other countries to follow suit. After he took similar executive action last year to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” Mexican officials lambasted the move and made clear they would keep using the old moniker. Google later announced that its maps feature would reflect the name “Gulf of America” for American users, while Mexican users would still see the name Gulf of Mexico.
Trump had been floating the name change since trade talks between the US and Canada fell apart last week. Trump enacted 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend, and Canada quickly followed suit by announcing increased tariffs on various US products. Trump has threatened to further escalate if Canada doesn’t back down.
On Tuesday, Trump said he was seriously considering renaming Lake Ontario “in that we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer.” Canada is the United States’ second largest trading partner, behind Mexico, according to US Census data, making up 12.6% of its total trade.
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