Trending
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump said Thursday he is renaming Lake Ontario to be known as "Lake America" in the United States as he escalates his trade war with Canada.
The Republican president signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to update the lake's name in the U.S. geographic naming service. Trump cannot force Canada to follow his preferred naming convention, however.
Trump has been floating the idea of the name change in recent days as the U.S. announced it was imposing 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down. Trump has been needling America's northern neighbor since he returned to the White House last year, suggesting the ally with whom the U.S. once had warm relations should instead be absorbed as the 51st state.
Canada responded to Trump's import taxes this week by imposing retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.
Trump, who signed the order as he was sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, had a large sign behind him propped on a stand with a map of the Great Lakes. Over Lake Ontario, in big red letters, the map read "Lake America."
On the other side of the president was another map with the words, "MAKING THE GREAT LAKES EVEN GREATER."
Trump said as he was signing the order that he'd "notified all of the various people that we have to notify. So, we've done everything that you have to do."
"And this is official, effective immediately," he added.
But the executive order Trump signed shows that the changes are supposed to be made within 30 days.
The office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did not immediately respond to a request for comment
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston dismissed Trump's move in a social media post, writing: "We're into some real foolishness now. It's Lake Ontario, buddy."
The lake is one of multiple Great Lakes that the U.S. and Canada share borders along.
There is no single international body that determines names of international bodies of water and Trump has wide latitude over how the U.S. government recognizes geographic places and landmarks.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has traded insults with Trump, this week brushed aside the prospect of Trump changing the lake's name as "a lot of rhetoric."
The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people's word "oniatarí:io," which means "lake of shining waters." The province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.