United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing federal agencies to refer to Lake Ontario as Lake America. The measure follows the sudden breakdown of trade negotiations between Washington and Ottawa late last week.
During an Oval Office signing ceremony, the American leader asserted that the new designation took effect immediately and that his administration had completed all required paperwork. He maintained that the decision was not specifically targeted at Canada, though he accused the northern neighbor of taking advantage of the United States in trade matters for years. He also mused about potentially altering the names of the Atlantic or Pacific oceans in the future.
The directive instructs the Department of the Interior to update the Geographic Names Information Service, which serves as the official registry for domestic geographic titles within the United States. While the American government holds authority over its own domestic designations, international bodies and foreign governments are not bound by unilateral name changes.
Relations between the two allies have deteriorated sharply following the collapse of trade talks. In response to the breakdown, the United States levied a 50 percent tariff on approximately $20 billion worth of Canadian merchandise. Canadian authorities have announced plans to implement matching retaliatory tariffs starting next month.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney criticized the decree on social media, pointing out that the historic title of the lake dates back more than four centuries, predating both the American Declaration of Independence and the establishment of the Canadian Confederation. He emphasized that the landmark would retain its traditional designation indefinitely. Other Canadian officials similarly rejected the directive, with various regional and federal leaders dismissing the move as absurd and confirming they would continue using the historical name.
This development echoes a similar action taken after the president took office last year, when an executive order sought to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. That prior decision triggered friction with Mexico, which rejected the unilateral change of a shared body of international water, and resulted in ongoing legal battles and adjustments by digital mapping services operating in different regions.
Lake Ontario is the smallest of the five Great Lakes and forms a natural border between the United States state of New York and the Canadian province of Ontario. The original titles of four of the Great Lakes stem from indigenous vocabulary, while the fifth derives from a French term.
Reporting based on coverage first published by BBC News. Read the original report at BBC News.
