Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing the federal government to rename Lake Ontario, making it Lake America. The largely symbolic move comes amid an escalating trade war with Canada.
Trump's remarks on trade and defense
“As you know, Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade. Sad,” Trump said after signing the executive order updating the Department of Interior’s naming conventions. “Even the military: we defend Canada for nothing. We don’t get anything. They don’t pay us to defend Canada. But we defend Canada.”
Both Canada and the United States are Nato members and have treaty obligations of mutual defense under the North Atlantic Treaty, the Ogdensburg Agreement and numerous other treaties.
Official status and geographic notes
“We’ve notified all the various people we have to notify,” Trump said after signing the order … This is official effective immediately.”
An administration official noted that the lake bordering Canada and the state of New York has most of its volume in the United States and that the deepest part of the lake is in United States territory. On his first day of his second term in office, Trump signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”.
Possible future renaming
“We have a Gulf and we have a Lake – now all we need is an ocean. Maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “Maybe we’ll change them both.”
