President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order meant to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America,” taking his apparent jab at Canada one step further as a trade war between the two countries escalates.
The president said the name change was “effective immediately” during a signing ceremony in the Oval Office. The executive order directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to update the Geographic Names Information Service to reflect the name change.
When asked by reporters about the move, Trump said he was sending “no message” to Canada with the name change.
“Lake of America was something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” the president said. “Actually, as you know, we took something called the Gulf of Mexico, we changed it, and now it’s very routinely the Gulf of America.”
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“If you think about it, we have a Gulf, and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean,” Trump added, floating a potential name change for the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.
The name change to “Lake America” came two days after Trump had threatened to do so in a Truth Social post.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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