Trump's 'Lake America' Renaming Draws Mockery in Canada
Trump's 'Lake America' Renaming Draws Mockery in Canada
The News
President Donald Trump wants Lake Ontario renamed "Lake America," a move he tied to Canada's refusal to accept his trade terms — and it is drawing mockery on both sides of the border.
The Daily Signal reports Trump made the demand in a Truth Social post after Canada balked at his trade negotiation terms. Writing at AlterNet, former labor secretary Robert Reich says Trump described it as a decision he had already made because he was angry at Canada.
It is the second Trump map change of its kind, following his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Timeline
Trump posts on Truth Social that Lake Ontario should be renamed Lake America, after Canada refuses his trade negotiation terms, according to The Daily Signal.
A map labeling Lake Ontario as "Lake America" is displayed in the Oval Office as Trump speaks, per a Getty Images photo caption published by The Daily Signal.
The Daily Signal publishes a column arguing the political left has spent years renaming landmarks and now objects only because the new name is "America."
CTV News reports that Americans living in Canada are among the angriest at the renaming, quoting one who calls it "childish." Reich's column calling the move "place robbery" runs the same day.
Reactions
Americans living in Canada told CTV News they are as outraged as their Canadian neighbors — or more so. One called the renaming "childish."
Reich, a Berkeley public policy professor and former labor secretary, wrote that "it's one thing for Trump to usurp powers that belong to Congress — quite another for him to usurp places that belong to all of us," and argued that no single person should be able to "arbitrarily rob us" of names Americans learned in elementary school.
Conservative media critic Tim Graham, writing in The Daily Signal, said the outrage is selective: the left "regularly changes the terminology and expects everyone to follow," from statue removals to renamed Army bases, and objects now mainly because the word on the map is "America."
Graham quoted HBO host Bill Maher joking: "The liberals are very pissed at this. They say you can't just go around changing things to fit your political agenda. Just ask any Latinx birthing person."
What's Next
Reich writes that Trump is also considering renaming the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, citing a Fox News report.
The practical fight is over who follows the new label. Reich says Google Maps and Apple Maps have adopted Trump's changes while MapQuest has refused.
Expect the same press standoff that followed the Gulf renaming. The Daily Signal notes The Associated Press was restricted from the White House press pool for refusing to use the new gulf terminology.
More
What a President Can Actually Do
Reich acknowledges that a U.S. president has legal authority to instruct the U.S. Board on Geographic Names to update official maps and domestic databases — but argues that power exists to maintain uniformity, not to rewrite shared landmarks on a whim.
Reich places the lake dispute alongside other changes to shared spaces he objects to: the ballroom built in place of the White House East Wing, the Reflecting Pool's bottom painted dark blue, and a proposed arch near Arlington National Cemetery.
Graham counters with a list of his own: President Joe Biden renamed nine major Army bases honoring Confederate leaders, including Fort Bragg, Fort Benning, Fort Pickett, Fort Hood and Fort Rucker, and renamed nearly 650 geographic features. Under Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a "Derogatory Geographic Names Task Force" stripped offensive terms from place names.
Poll
Should Lake Ontario be renamed "Lake America"?
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