Trump Personally Urges Apple To Rename Lake Ontario As Lake America On Its Maps App

US President Donald Trump has asked Apple to change the name of Lake Ontario to "Lake America" on its maps app, his administration's interior chief said Monday, days after signing an executive order over the body of water now in the spotlight amid his escalating trade war with Canada. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox's "Mornings with Maria" program that Trump "reached out to Apple directly," adding that he was confident the "Lake America" name could be seen on Apple's platform soon. Apple did not immediately comment in response, and as of Monday afternoon, only the Lake Ontario name appeared on its platform, though the label notably hovered above Canada's water border.

The request follows a similar move by Google, which rolled out the new "Lake America" name over the weekend for US users viewing the body of water that sits between the state of New York and Canada's Ontario province. Google cited Trump's recent executive order as well as its established practice of using names assigned by the US Geographic Names Information System, known as GNIS, which it says feeds automatically into mapping software used across multiple platforms. According to Burgum, that federal naming system effectively cascades down to map providers once updated, a process he described as "a little bit of inside baseball."

Trump declared the new "Lake America" name last week, marking one of the latest provocations during his trade war with Canada, which is now driving tariff increases on both sides of the border. His executive order, signed on Thursday, directed the Interior Department to update the lake's name within the federal geographic naming service. Notably, the president cannot compel Canada to adopt the change, and Canadian officials and residents quickly criticized the move. The leader of the Seneca Nation in upstate New York also said the renaming violates a treaty more than 225 years old and reflects "blatant disrespect" for the Indigenous people who originally gave Lake Ontario its name.

Also Read: Barron Trump Keeps Low Profile Amid Iranian Threats Against His Father Donald Trump

The episode is not the first time Trump has sought to rename a body of water that extends beyond US borders. Last year, he ordered that the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America, a change that applies only to US federal documents and geographic services but has nonetheless been adopted by several online map services and news organizations, with Apple Maps currently labeling the area "Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)." Notably, Apple took more than three weeks to implement that earlier change, considerably longer than Google's eight-day turnaround at the time, suggesting a similar lag could occur with the Lake Ontario renaming as well.

Reactions to the Lake Ontario name change have been mixed among map providers and international users. Google has said Canadian users will continue to see "Lake Ontario" on its platform, while some Ontario government agency websites briefly displayed "Lake America" over the weekend, a discrepancy Google attributed to regional settings selected by individual website developers rather than an intentional broader rollout. At least one competing map provider, MapQuest, has stated it will not adopt the "Lake America" label at all, underscoring the uneven and contested nature of the renaming effort as it plays out across the technology industry amid heightened diplomatic tensions between Washington and Ottawa.

Also Read: Canada Unveils Giant Lake Ontario Sign After Trump’s Proposal To Rename Gulf Of Mexico