President Trump Signs Executive Order Renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing federal agencies to change the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America on United States maps and documents. The order follows the rebranding of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America last year. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum issued a memo to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names to implement the change, and the U.S. Geological Survey announced that its Geographic Names Information System is being updated. The move comes amid collapsed trade negotiations between the U.S. and Canada, which included the imposition of a 50% tariff on some goods and a promised dollar for dollar response from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Prime Minister Carney noted that the name Lake Ontario predates both the U.S. and Canada and originates from the Indigenous Wendat/Huron word Ontari’io. Both the Canadian government and the governor of New York have indicated they will ignore the name change. During the signing, Staff Secretary Ben Moss described the order as straightforward but important, while a poster at the event read Making the Great Lakes Even Greater.