Donald Trump mocked Canadian officials on Saturday while pressing ahead with his push to rename Lake Ontario, a move that has drawn a pointed response from the province that shares its shoreline.
The US president signed an executive order on Thursday instructing the Interior Department to use “Lake America” as the name of the body of water for US federal purposes, as trade tensions continue between Washington and its northern neighbor.
The order does not force Canada, or any international body, to recognize the new name, and Canadian leaders have already pushed back against the attempted rebranding.
Trump nevertheless leaned into the dispute, sharing an AI-generated video on Truth Social on Saturday that showed him kicking down the original sign, putting up one that read “Welcome to Lake America,” and then dancing around it.
The post appeared only hours after Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled an actual sign at a lakeside park declaring: “Lake Ontario, Now and Always.”
Speaking in front of the sign at 50 Point Conservation Area in Hamilton, Ford said the display was meant to deliver a message to Trump: Canadians are resilient, strong and “we will never, ever back down from a bully,” the Globe and Mail reports.
“The lake will always be known as Lake Ontario in Canada and the rest of the world, no matter what Trump calls it,” Ford added. He later echoed the sentiment in a video posted on X.
“I’m here on the shores of beautiful Lake Ontario, a crown jewel of our province and our country,” he said.
President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated GIF of himself erecting a ‘Welcome to Lake America’ sign on the shores of Lake Ontario
It came just hours after Ontario Premier Doug Ford erected his own sign, declaring that the lake is ‘Lake Ontario, now and always’
‘You may have heard that President Trump is trying to rename this lake, all because he doesn’t like Ontario and Canada standing up for ourselves.
‘But, let’s be serious: Long before President Trump, this lake was called Lake Ontario and long after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario.’
He then said he erected the sign ‘just in case President Trump or anyone else forgets.’
The premier’s remarks echoed those of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who on Thursday declared Canadians would continue calling it Lake Ontario ‘then, now and always.’
‘The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means “the lake is beautiful, the lake is big,”‘ Carney wrote on X.
‘The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.’
Carney then delivered a thinly veiled swipe at the dramatic changes taking place south of his border under Trump.
‘We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms,’ he wrote.
In a video posted on X, Ford said he erected the sign ‘just in case President Trump or anyone else forgets’
President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney are locked in an increasingly bitter dispute over trade – and now over what to call Lake Ontario
‘Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.’
Lake Ontario forms part of the international boundary between New York and the Canadian province of Ontario.
It has been jointly managed under the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty for more than a century.
But when he signed the executive order on Thursday, Trump said he had contemplated the name change for a ‘long time.’
He then suggested he may not be finished tinkering with the map – joking that the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean could eventually find itself in his sights.
‘Actually, as you know, we took something called the Gulf of Mexico and we changed it, and now it’s very routinely the Gulf of America,’ Trump said.
‘So, if you think about it, we have a Gulf and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean. So, maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific.’
The announcement comes at a particularly explosive moment in US-Canadian relations.
A map labeling Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America’ is displayed after Trump signed an executive order renaming the lake in the Oval Office of the White House on Thursday
Trade negotiations between the longtime allies have collapsed, with Trump threatening punishing new tariffs on Canadian goods and Carney promising Canada will retaliate ‘dollar for dollar.’
Trump has said tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, automotive parts and steel will rise to 50 percent by 2027 as he attempts to force more manufacturing into the United States.
And while signing Thursday’s order, the president made clear that his dispute with Ottawa was far bigger than the name of a lake.
‘The whole Canadian thing has to come to a stop,’ Trump said.
‘We are going to be doing tariffs on their cars that are coming in at a substantial level because we want to make the cars here.
‘They can make their own cars if they want and they can continue to make cars for Canada but we don’t want them to make cars for the United States of America. It’s very simple. Likewise many other products.’
Trump also accused Canada of relying on the United States for military protection without adequately compensating Washington.
Carney pointed out that Lake Ontario has been known by its name since before the US gained independence
‘We defend Canada for nothing, we don’t get anything,’ he said. ‘We love the people of Canada, but their representatives aren’t doing an appropriate job.’
The president has separately branded Canadian officials ‘nasty people’ and described the country as one of America’s most difficult trading partners.
‘People oftentimes they’ll ask me who’s the worst to deal with on trade, and I said that’s easy, Canada,’ Trump said.
‘They are the worst to trade, and they feel entitled, and just we can’t have that.’
