President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America, an action that follows the collapse of trade talks with Canada and the imposition of new tariffs. The order directs the U.S. Department of the Interior to update the Geographic Names Information Service, the official repository for U.S. geographic names, to reflect the change. "We've filed all the necessary papers, documents," Trump stated, describing the move as "official, effective immediately."
The renaming effort is linked to an ongoing trade dispute. Last week, trade talks between the U.S. and Canada broke down, leading the U.S. to impose a 50% tariff on approximately $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. Canada has announced it will implement retaliatory tariffs on a dollar-for-dollar basis next month.
Trump had previously used social media to threaten renaming the lake, which is one of the five Great Lakes straddling the U.S. and Canada. He had also signed a similar order upon entering the White House in 2025, renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. This earlier action led to Mexico rejecting the name change, asserting that a single country cannot rename a shared international body of water, and a dispute with Google over its maps application.
Officials in Canada have dismissed the latest renaming attempt. On Tuesday, Industry Minister Melanie Joly stated, "We'll always call it Lake Ontario." Canada is not obligated to recognize name changes enacted by other countries.
Lake Ontario, the smallest of the Great Lakes, borders the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of New York. The names of four Great Lakes—Ontario, Huron, Michigan, and Erie—originate from Indigenous words, while Lake Superior's name is derived from an anglicized French term.