Trump considers renaming Lake Ontario to "Lake America" amid Canada trade war

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to "Lake America" as trade tensions with Canada escalate.

"The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don't expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer," Trump said in a post on Truth Social Tuesday morning.

Lake Ontario lies on the border between New York state and Ontario, Canada's most populous province. The lake is the smallest and easternmost of the five Great Lakes of North America.

Trump's statement comes as the U.S. and Canada are locked in an intensifying trade dispute. On Saturday, the Trump administration enacted 50% tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian goods after negotiations between the countries broke down. On Monday, Trump announced that the U.S. will impose a 50% tariff on all Canadian automotive and steel imports beginning in September.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised new retaliatory tariffs against the United States in response to the American tariffs. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has threatened to cut off electricity and mineral supplies to the U.S.

This is not Trump's first attempt at renaming geographical features. In January 2025, Trump issued an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America." Mexico argued at the time that the U.S. cannot legally change the Gulf's name because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea dictates that an individual country's sovereign territory only extends up to 12 nautical miles out from the coastline.

The tariff dispute has affected American businesses. The owner of a Michigan furniture manufacturer said the White House's new tariffs on Canadian imports will "hamper the ability for us to put food on the table for our family."

Vice President JD Vance has slammed Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney over his trade policies and referenced Trump's controversial calls to make Canada the 51st state.