Responding to Trump, Canada Installs Large 'Lake Ontario Forever' Signage
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has responded to the actions of US President Donald Trump, who changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. He has installed large signs along the shores of the Canadian territory reading ‘Lake Ontario. Now and Forever’.
According to the BBC on Sunday (30/8/2026), Trump signed an executive order aimed at renaming the lake to Lake America and shared a series of AI-generated videos depicting the lake, which spans both nations.
“Long before President Trump’s era, this lake was named Lake Ontario. Long after President Trump’s term ends, this lake will remain Lake Ontario,” said Ford.
This war of words was triggered by the failure of trade negotiations, in which the US imposed new tariffs of 50% on Canadian products worth USD 20 billion (IDR 355 trillion). Canada is set to implement retaliatory tariffs of an equivalent ‘dollar-for-dollar’ value next month.
Trump stated that the decision takes effect immediately after he signed the order to rename the lake to Lake America. Although he possesses broad authority regarding how the US recognises place names or landmarks, other nations are not obligated to follow suit.
Canadian officials responded to Trump’s move with a dismissive attitude. On Saturday (29/8), Trump also posted several AI-generated videos on social media, one of which showed him kicking a Lake Ontario sign and replacing it with one reading ‘Welcome to Lake America’.
Another video featured a flock of Canada geese sporting Trump’s signature hairstyle and carrying rifles while patrolling the shores of the newly named Lake America. Ford subsequently stated that Trump’s move to rename the lake was caused by his dislike of seeing ‘Ontario and Canada daring to defend themselves’.
“Just to remind President Trump or anyone else, we are installing this sign to assert that this is Lake Ontario, now and forever,” said Ford, standing in front of the newly installed Lake Ontario sign.
Previously, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney asserted that ‘something must be called by its original name, and this lake is named Lake Ontario—today and forever’.
The names of four of the five Great Lakes—Ontario, Huron, Michigan, and Erie—originate from Indigenous languages. The name Lake Superior is derived from an Anglicised French term. Lake Ontario, the smallest of the Great Lakes, borders the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the US.
Trump’s executive order gives the US Department of the Interior 30 days to update the name change within the Geographic Names Information Service—the official agency for domestic geographic names in the US. When Trump took office in 2025, he signed a similar order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Mexico rejected that name change on the grounds that one nation cannot unilaterally rename international waters held in common. This also triggered a legal dispute between Mexico and the tech giant Google, which changed the name of the gulf in its mapping applications. In that instance, Google Maps users in the US saw ‘Gulf of America’, while users in Mexico saw ‘Gulf of Mexico’, and users in other countries saw ‘Gulf of Mexico (Gulf of America)’.