But while Trump can influence the names used by the US federal government, he cannot unilaterally force Canada or the rest of the world to adopt a new name for the shared Great Lake.
US President Donald Trump has floated another geographic name change, saying the United States is considering calling Lake Ontario “Lake America” amid an escalating trade dispute with Canada .
Reuters reported that the remarks came after US-Canada trade negotiations collapsed and tensions between the two countries escalated.
Trump announced the proposal on August 25, saying on Truth Social that the United States was giving “serious consideration” to changing the name because it did not expect to be “doing much business with Ontario any longer. In a video accompanying the proposal, Trump held up a map of Lake Ontario, crossed out its name and wrote “Lake America” over it. “So Lake Ontario, that’s gone,” Trump said before displaying the altered map.
Reuters reported that Canada’s Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Canada would continue calling it Lake Ontario. The US government does have a system for standardizing geographic names used by federal agencies. The US Board on Geographic Names is the official source for geographic names used by the federal government, while the US Geological Survey maintains the Geographic Names Information System, or GNIS. That means the Trump administration could potentially pursue a change in the terminology used by US federal agencies. But such a move would not compel Canadian authorities, Canadian residents or international organizations to stop using “Lake Ontario. Canadian officials have already pushed back on the proposal.
Trump’s Lake Ontario proposal follows his administration’s earlier effort to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
