US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario, which borders the United States and Canada, to 'Lake America'. At a Tuesday press conference in the Oval Office, Trump announced the change takes effect 'immediately'.

When asked what message the renaming sends to Canada, Trump criticized the country's trade relationship with the US, claiming Canada 'has been ripping us off for a long time'. He described Canadian officials as 'nasty people' and said they 'have treated us very badly'.

Trump added that the lake renaming was something he had been considering for a long time. This is not his first attempt to rename geographical features tied to neighboring countries: in January 2025, he rebranded the Gulf of Mexico as the 'Gulf of America'.

The name 'Ontario' actually derives from the Huron Indigenous word 'oniatarí:io', meaning 'lake of shining waters', not from the Canadian province, which was founded in 1867 and took its name from the lake.

During the Oval Office ceremony, Trump teased further name changes for other bodies of water: '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. Maybe we'll change them both.'

Source: www.aljazeera.com