US President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order directing the renaming of Lake Ontario to "Lake America," amid trade tensions with Canada, saying the change would take effect immediately.
"We're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario, effective immediately to Lake America," Trump said in the Oval Office before signing the executive order.
The signing comes as relations between Canada and the US deteriorated following the collapse of trade negotiations and Washington's imposition of new tariffs on Canadian goods, with Ottawa quickly retaliating.
The order directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the Department of the Interior to update the Geographic Names Information Service to reflect the new name.
Trump said the move was not intended as a message to Canada, despite escalating tensions between Washington and Ottawa over trade and tariffs.
"No message," Trump said, when asked what signal the renaming sent to Canada.
He then criticized Canada over trade, saying it had been "ripping us off for a long time" and it of failing to contribute sufficiently to the defense of North America.
"We lose, on average, over the last 15 years, $60 billion a year carrying Canada," Trump said. "We just can't do it anymore."
Trump said his administration would impose substantial tariffs on Canadian cars in an effort to encourage manufacturers to produce vehicles in the US.
"We don't want them to make cars for the United States of America," he said. "It's very simple," adding that "Canadian officials have treated us very badly."
"We can't let the whole Canadian thing has been going on for decades, and it has to come to a stop," he said.
Trump compared the Lake Ontario renaming to his administration's earlier decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America."
"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," he said.
"All we need is an ocean," Trump said. "So maybe we'll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we'll change them both."
