LANSING — President Donald Trump has suggested he will rename Lake Ontario as "Lake America" amid an escalating trade dispute with Canada and Ontario, its most populous province.
"The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don't expect to (be) doing much business with Ontario any longer," Trump said Aug. 25 on his social media platform Truth Social.
"Thank you for your attention to this matter!"
It was not immediately clear what power the U.S. president had to change the name of one of the Great Lakes.
A trade dispute with Canada escalated Aug. 22 after talks between the two countries failed. Trump announced 50% tariffs on a range of Canadian imports, including wine, dairy, hockey
sticks and cement.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford weighed in on the dispute Aug. 24, criticizing Trump as "the type of person that would steal your lunch money" and threatening a range of retaliatory steps, including cutting off electricity exports and shipments of minerals such as nickel from Ontario to the U.S.
In 2025, Trump signed a proclamation renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, amid border disputes with Mexico.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Trump threatens to rename Lake Ontario as 'Lake America'
