Mr. Trump wants to change the name of the lake located between the US and Canada

“The United States is seriously considering changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America, because we no longer expect to do much business with Ontario. Thank you everyone for your interest in this issue,” US President Donald Trump posted on the social network Truth Social on August 25.

In terms of surface area, Lake Ontario is the smallest of the Great Lakes of North America, located between the US state of New York and the Canadian province of Ontario.

Canada has not yet responded to the head of the White House’s post.

The US President’s post appeared a day after he warned Canada would face “far worse consequences” if the country’s leaders did not “comply”, after trade negotiations between the two countries broke down. Mr. Trump also repeatedly criticized Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, accusing Canada of taking advantage of the United States for decades.

“Doug Ford brags about all sorts of things, but is mainly known as the less attractive, less intelligent and less impressive younger brother of the late, great Rob Ford. Someone should force these clowns to obey,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the late mayor of Toronto, the capital of Ontario and Canada’s largest city.

The controversy took place in the context that Mr. Trump on August 24 threatened to increase tariffs to 50% on Canadian cars, trucks, auto parts and steel, starting from January 1, 2027. From August 22, the US imposed a 50% import tax on 28 billion USD of Canadian goods, such as wine, wooden furniture, cement, clothes, fishing rods, etc. Canada announced that it would respond with a tax “commensurate with each dollar” starting from September 8.

This is not the first time the US President has tried to change the name of a body of water by adding the word “USA”. On the first day of his second term, he signed an executive order requiring the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed “Gulf of America”. Government agencies and the US Coast Guard later adopted this name, while other countries did not recognize the change.

The issue also exploded into a conflict between the White House and the Associated Press, after the company continued to use the term Gulf of Mexico. A federal judge later ruled against the White House, saying Trump’s decision to restrict AP from attending events to punish the company was “unconstitutional.”

In May 2025, the US House of Representatives passed a bill sponsored by Republican lawmakers to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.