Trump Sharpies Lake Ontario Into 'Lake America'
Trump Sharpies Lake Ontario Into 'Lake America'
The News
President Donald Trump posted a video Wednesday of himself taking a Sharpie to a map of Lake Ontario, crossing out the name and writing "Lake America" in its place — an escalation of his running taunt at Canada as a trade war between the two countries deepens.
The clip, shared to Trump's TikTok account, shows the president in the Oval Office holding the map of the Great Lake, which straddles the U.S.-Canada border.
"We're gonna make a little change; we're gonna call it something different than Lake Ontario," Trump said. "We're gonna call it Lake America. And all it takes is a good pen and some intelligence."
He tied the move to his 2025 rebranding of the Gulf of Mexico: "Now we have a gulf because we have the Gulf of America. And now we have Lake America without the 'of.' Enjoy Lake America."
Timeline
The U.S. imposed 50 percent tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods after last-minute talks broke down, according to The Independent.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that the United States "is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don't expect to [be] doing much business with Ontario any longer."
Canada announced retaliatory tariffs on roughly 700 U.S. goods, taking effect Sept. 8. The Associated Press reported some duties double from 25 percent to 50 percent, hitting steel and aluminum products, furniture and clothing at 50 percent, and appliances, dairy, fish and seafood at 25 percent.
Trump repeated the renaming push in an interview, then posted the Sharpie video to social media.
Reactions
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney likened the new U.S. tariffs to an act of war and answered with retaliatory levies of up to 50 percent.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, whom Trump has called a blustering "flunky" who needs to "fall in line" and separately labeled "unimpressive," fired back by calling the president a "dictator" and "the king of bankruptcies," adding that Trump can "kiss my a**." Ford has also floated cutting Canadian electricity to 1.5 million U.S. homes and businesses.
Online, the video drew mockery. Commentator Ed Krassenstein wrote on X that "Trump and Republicans are worried about renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America" while gas and beef prices climb. The account Republicans Against Trump posted: "Trump has made America the laughingstock of the world."
What's Next
Canada's retaliatory tariffs on about 700 American products take effect Sept. 8.
Any actual renaming would run through the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, the federal agency that governs how the government uses geographic names. Even if it signed off, other countries — including Canada — would not be obligated to adopt the new name.
More
The Sharpie is a recurring Trump prop. In September 2019, he displayed a National Hurricane Center map of Hurricane Dorian's projected path with a black curved line extending the cone into Alabama, after meteorologists disputed his claim the storm could hit the state. Trump never confirmed he drew it, though sources told Bloomberg at the time that he had.
At a Cabinet meeting in March, Trump went on a tangent praising the marker, saying he had gotten custom all-black Sharpies for the White House at $5 apiece after speaking with "the head of Sharpie." A spokesman for Newell Brands, which owns Sharpie, told The Washington Post: "We don't have any information about the conversation described."
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