Trump Renames Lake Ontario ‘Lake America’ Amid Tensions With Canada

By Sabiu Abdullahi

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order changing the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America”, in a move that has added a new dimension to the growing tensions between the United States and Canada.

Trump announced the change on Thursday after signing the order at the Oval Office.

“This is official, effective immediately,” Trump said.

The president also said he had completed the required procedures for the renaming.

Trump said he had “filed all the necessary papers, documents, everything else” for the name change and “notified all of the various people that we have to notify”.

Lake Ontario is one of North America’s five Great Lakes. It lies along the Canada-US border, with the Canadian province of Ontario located to its north and New York State in the United States to its south.

The other Great Lakes are Huron, Michigan, Erie and Superior. Together, the five freshwater bodies contain about one-fifth of the world’s surface freshwater.

The lake has been known as Lake Ontario for centuries. Its first known appearance under that name on a map dates to 1656, although historians believe the name was already in local use before then.

Trump’s executive order justified the new name on the grounds that most of the lake’s volume lies within US territory.

The order stated that “the deepest parts of the Lake’s waters lying within United States territory, the United States claims most of the Lake’s volume” and that the lake has “long been an integral asset to American exploration, settlement, commerce, and defense”.

However, it remains unclear whether the name change will be recognised outside the United States because geographical names are not governed by a single international authority.

Canada Rejects New Name

Canada has already indicated that it will continue to use the traditional name.

Earlier in the week, before Trump signed the order, Canadian Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said: “We’ll always call it Lake Ontario”.

Lake Ontario was formed after the last Ice Age from the earlier Lake Iroquois about 11,400 years ago.

By the mid-18th century, before the American Revolution and the eventual establishment of Canada and the United States, Lake Ontario had become the established name.

The name “Ontario” is believed to have Iroquoian origins. The Canadian Encyclopaedia says it may mean “beautiful lake” or “sparkling water”, while some historians interpret it as “vast body of water”.

French missionary records from around 1641 also referred to the body of water as Lake Ontario. The Canadian province of Ontario later adopted the name when it was created at Confederation in 1867.

Trump Links Move To Previous Renaming

The decision follows Trump’s earlier attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”.

Trump referred to the two renaming decisions while speaking about Lake Ontario.

“We have a gulf and we have a lake. Now all we need is an ocean so maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific,” Trump said, referring to the bodies of water on either side of the US coastline.

The latest move comes amid renewed tensions between Washington and Ottawa after trade negotiations between the two countries broke down late Friday.

The United States subsequently imposed 50 percent tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of Canadian exports, further straining relations between the neighbouring countries.