US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that, according to the White House, immediately changes the name of Lake Ontario to the "Lake of America", opening a new front in his increasingly confrontational relationship with Canada.
The executive order was signed on Thursday in the Oval Office, where a map displaying the new designation in large red lettering was also presented.
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: Lake Ontario is renamed to LAKE AMERICA! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/ZFww8PexiW
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 27, 2026
Lake Ontario is one of the Great Lakes and sits along the border between the United States and Canada.
White House justification
"The United States is the greatest steward of the Great Lakes," the executive order states.
It further argues that the US controls the larger share of the lake's volume because its deepest sections lie within American territory.
The name "Ontario", which is also the name of a Canadian province, is derived from the Iroquois word "kanadario", meaning "sparkling water", according to the Canadian government.
Trump used the occasion to suggest further changes to geographical names.
"We have a gulf and we have a lake. The only thing we're missing is an ocean. So we might change the name of the Atlantic or the Pacific. We might change both," he said.
Earlier in his second term, Trump ordered the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America".
US President Donald Trump posted a video of him crossing out Lake Ontario on a map and writing ‘Lake America’ instead. It comes amid escalating tensions between the US and Canada after trade talks failed. pic.twitter.com/N0u0GvsVji
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 27, 2026
Trade dispute with Canada
The move comes amid a deepening trade confrontation between Washington and Ottawa.
Trump has repeatedly accused Canada of taking advantage of the United States economically and has previously suggested that Canada should become the 51st US state.
"The Canadians have treated us very badly. They are bad people," the US president said on Thursday.
The two countries are currently engaged in a tariff dispute following the breakdown of trade negotiations.
Washington is preparing new tariffs on a range of Canadian products, while Ottawa has announced retaliatory measures that are due to take effect on 8 September.
Carney rejects the name change
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded sharply, declaring that the lake would continue to be known as Lake Ontario.
"We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms. ," Carney wrote on X.
"Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.."
Carney also noted that the name predates both Canadian Confederation and US independence by more than four centuries.
The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means “the lake is beautiful, the lake is big”.
— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) August 27, 2026
The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.…
No international recognition
While the executive order changes how the US administration refers to the lake, it does not provide any form of international recognition for the new name.
Lake Ontario remains internationally recognised under its longstanding designation and continues to appear under that name in Canadian and international geographic references.
