First the Gulf of Mexico, now Lake Ontario – President Donald Trump has suggested that an ocean could be next.
The president signed an executive order on Thursday rename Lake Ontario — one of the five Great Lakes, bordering both Canada and the U.S. — to Lake America, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he had been thinking about the change “for a long time.”
“Maybe we should change the name of the Atlantic Ocean and/or the Pacific Ocean,” Trump said of renaming other bodies of water after America. “Maybe we’ll change them both.”
Canadian officials have said they would not recognize the lake’s new name, which applies only to U.S. federal use.
The move comes as Trump’s tariff-driven trade war with Canada continues to escalate. In August, the U.S. imposed new 50% tariffs on about $20 billion of Canadian goods after negotiations collapsed, prompting Canada to announce retaliatory tariffs of up to 50%.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded to Xstating that Canadians would continue to call the lake Lake Ontario, a name dating back more than 400 years.
Lake Ontario is the latest of many name changes Trump has implemented or overseen during his second non-consecutive term.
In addition renaming numerous government programs and buildings after Trump himself, here’s a look at the other places the administration has renamed so far.
January 2025: Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico and Denali.
A “Gulf of America” poster behind President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
On his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness.”
It led two actions: rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America‘, and restoring Alaska’s Denali, the highest mountain in North America, to its former federal name, Mount McKinley. President Barack Obama previously restored the mountain’s original name in Alaska in 2015, meaning “the high one” in the Koyukon language.
Trump’s executive order acknowledged that “Congressional action is necessary to establish a new name in public law,” but called on federal agencies to use the new names in the meantime.
Both Google and Apple have since updated their map features to reflect the name change. The Associated Press continued to call the body of water the Gulf of Mexico, which the White House led to bar AP of some press events.
February to June 2025: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth restored the names of nine Army bases.
Fort Bragg in North Carolina. US Army photo by Pfc. Joshua Cowden / 22nd Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
In 2023, the Biden administration changed the names of Army bases named after Confederate leaders, renamed after Medal of Honor recipients, military leaders and other war heroes, including women and people of color.
Hegseth reversed the changes in a series of orders in 2025, restoring the names of Fort Walker, Fort Benning, Fort Pickett, Fort Lee, Fort Gordon, Fort Hood, Fort Polk, Fort Rucker and Fort Bragg.
August 2026: Trump signs an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America.” Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Canadians called for boycotts of U.S. products and travel before the latest executive order. Carney acknowledged in his X response to Lake Ontario’s name change that the U.S. is “changing.”
“Their trade relations, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms,” he wrote. “Canadian women and men also know that things should be called by their names, and this lake is called Lake Ontario – today and forever.”
