The Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, criticized a decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to rename Lake Ontario—the smallest of the five Great Lakes—located on the border between the two countries—"America Lake." The order to change the name of the body of water was signed by the American leader at the White House on Thursday, July 27,—a few days after the collapse of trade talks with Canada.
"We immediately change the name of Lake Ontario to 'Lake America,'" Trump told reporters. He explained his decision by saying that "Canadian officials treated representatives of the United States very poorly."
Canada's prime minister responded to the U.S. leader's decision. "This name is already more than 400 years old; it appeared long before the formation of the Canadian Confederation and the adoption of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. We know that America is changing. Its trade ties, foreign policy, national monuments, and even hydronyms are changing. But Canadians know this: calling things by their names means calling this lake Lake Ontario. That's how it was, that's how it is, and that's how it will always be," the Canadian prime minister wrote on his social media page on X.
Trump renamed the lake after the collapse of a trade deal and retaliatory tariffs from Canada
For the first time, on August 25, Trump announced plans to rename Lake Ontario—three days after the United States, due to the collapse of negotiations on a new trade deal, imposed customs tariffs of 50% on a number of goods from Canada: among other things, wine, furniture, dairy products, cement, clothing, fishing rods, and hockey equipment.
Immediately after that, Carney announced retaliatory tariffs of up to 50% on a range of goods from the United States. As the media report, they would affect areas such as the dairy industry, metallurgy, household appliances, the pulp and paper industry, electronics, and others. It is expected that the tariffs will take effect on September 8.
In the breakdown of the trade deal, the parties blamed each other. Carney said that an agreement could not be reached due to the U.S.'s "last-minute" proposed changes to conditions that were "unfair, non-market-based, and called into question the reliability of any deal." And the U.S. Trade Representative, Jameson Greer, who took part in the negotiations, said that Ottawa "refused to finalize the trade deal on the terms previously agreed to earlier in the week."
Trump repeatedly proposes renaming geographic features and institutions
Since the start of his second term, Trump has repeatedly proposed renaming major geographic features and various institutions. In January 2025, at his initiative, the Gulf of Mexico was renamed the American Gulf, and Denali mountains in Alaska were renamed back to McKinley. The first decision in Mexico was criticized, noting that the previous name had been used in international navigation for many centuries.
And in December 2025, the name of Trump was added to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. In May 2026, a court ruled that the name of the sitting U.S. president be removed from the center's name. The judge justified his verdict in part by noting that the center's name had been assigned by the U.S. Congress and that "only Congress can change it."