On Thursday, President Trump made good on perhaps the silliest threat he has directed toward Canada amid the burgeoning trade war, signing an executive order to change Lake Ontario’s name to “Lake America.”

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: Lake Ontario is renamed to LAKE AMERICA! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/ZFww8PexiW— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 27, 2026

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: Lake Ontario is renamed to LAKE AMERICA! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/ZFww8PexiW

The order directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, in conjunction with the Board on Geographic Names, to “take all appropriate actions” to officially rename Lake Ontario, including updating the Geographic Names Information System to remove all references to its original name and swap in “Lake America.” By Thursday afternoon, Trump shared an email from the director of the U.S. Geological Survey confirming that the agency has designated the lake as “Lake America” in all official online documents with a change to printed documents to occur in the coming days.

Not surprisingly, Canada isn’t having it. In a statement, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney invoked the origin of Lake Ontario’s name, saying that it comes from the Wendat word “Ontari’io’ which he said means “the lake is beautiful, the lake is big.”

“The name is........

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