Amid Canada trade war, President Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario ‘Lake of the Americas’

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday renaming Lake Ontario to “American Lakes” “effective immediately.”

President Trump’s attempt to rename the Great Lakes, which straddle the northern U.S. border with Canada, comes amid a sharp deterioration in relations between Washington and Ottawa, with the recent collapse of trade talks and new retaliatory tariffs.

President Trump has repeatedly threatened to take symbolic measures in recent days, but it is unclear whether he is serious. Canadian authorities have already said they will not recognize the new name.

“I am immediately renaming Lake Ontario to American Lakes,” Trump said in the Oval Office before signing the executive order.

A White House official told Trump that the order directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the department to update the Geographic Name Information System “to reflect that the lake formerly known as Lake Ontario will now be known as American Lake.”

This presidential action marks the second time President Trump has targeted the long-standing name of an international body of water and renamed it to align with the United States.

On the first day of his second term, President Trump signed an order changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” Attempts to rename the bay, which has had the same name since the 16th century, drew international opposition, with many media outlets vowing to stick to common usage.

Asked Thursday what message he was trying to send by renaming Lake Ontario, President Trump initially insisted there was “no message.”

But he quickly added, “Canada has been defrauding us on trade for a long time.”

“They’re not paying anything. They want to be treated like a state, but they’re not a state,” Trump said last year, repeatedly pushing for Canada to become the 51st U.S. state, angering many Canadians.

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