US President Donald Trump has announced that he is renaming Lake Ontario, one of North America's Great Lakes shared by the United States and Canada, as “Lake America.” Trump made the announcement Thursday from the Oval Office and said the new name would take effect immediately. The decision comes at a time when relations between Washington and Ottawa have been strained by an escalating trade dispute between the two neighbouring countries.

Trump said he had signed an executive order to change the name of the lake, describing the move as one he had been considering for some time. “We're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario effective immediately to Lake America,” the 80-year-old Republican told reporters. He then criticised Canadian officials over the state of relations between the two countries, saying, “The Canadian officials have treated us very badly. They're nasty people.” His remarks add a provocative element to an already tense period in US-Canada relations.

Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes and is shared by the United States and Canada. It sits between the Canadian province of Ontario and the US state of New York and is an important part of the Great Lakes water system. The lake has major economic, environmental and transportation significance for both countries. Because the water body is shared internationally, a unilateral naming decision by the US government is unlikely to automatically result in Canada adopting the proposed name.

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The announcement follows Trump's earlier decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” In January 2025, Trump moved to change the US government's official terminology for the body of water, a decision that also generated controversy and was not universally adopted outside the United States. Trump cited that precedent while explaining his latest decision on Lake Ontario, arguing that the new terminology could similarly become accepted through repeated use.

“The lake change, Lake of America, was something I've been thinking about for a long time, actually,” Trump said. Referring to the earlier Gulf decision, he added, “As you know, we took something called the Gulf of Mexico, we changed it, and now it's very routinely the Gulf of America.” Trump presented the lake renaming as part of a broader approach to geographical names and American identity, rather than simply as a response to the current dispute with Canada.

Trump then went further, joking that the United States could eventually consider changing the names of major oceans. “So, if you think about it, we have a Gulf and we have a lake. Now all we need is an ocean,” he said. “So, maybe we'll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we'll change them both.” The comments appeared to extend the naming theme beyond Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico, although Trump did not announce any formal action involving either ocean.

The proposed Lake America name is likely to become another source of disagreement between the United States and Canada, particularly given the broader trade tensions between the two countries. While the US president can direct how federal agencies in the United States refer to geographical features, international recognition of a name shared with another country is more complicated. For now, the announcement represents Trump's latest effort to assert an American framing over prominent geographical names, while also underscoring the unusually tense political relationship between Washington and Ottawa.

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