President Trump has signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America.”
Transcript
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
In other news now, let’s turn to President Trump’s feud with a neighbor and longtime ally. On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Now he’s made a similar move to rename Lake Ontario. Here’s NPR’s Danielle Kurtzleben.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Trump announced the proposed change in a video this week, using a Sharpie to rewrite the lake’s name on a map.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And all it takes is a good pen and some intelligence. So Lake Ontario – that’s gone. Lake…
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TRUMP: …America.
KURTZLEBEN: Yesterday, he signed an executive order changing the name for official U.S. government purposes. The reason, Trump said, is that Canada treats the U.S. unfairly on trade.
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TRUMP: People – oftentimes they’ll ask me, who’s the worst to deal with on trade? And I said, that’s easy. Canada. They are the worst at trade. And they feel entitled, and just – we can’t have that.
KURTZLEBEN: Trump, in fact, negotiated a trade pact with Canada and Mexico in his first term – the USMCA. But despite that, he has repeatedly imposed or threatened tariffs on Canadian goods this term. Canada retaliated with measures like tariffs and boycotts – for example, pulling American booze off liquor store shelves. Last week, 50% U.S. tariffs on a variety of Canadian goods took effect after trade talks broke down between the countries. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the U.S., quote, “asked too much,” and they “offered too little.” He added this.
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PRIME MINISTER MARK CARNEY: More fundamentally, the cumulative effect of U.S. demands revealed the limits of their commitment to a true economic partnership.
KURTZLEBEN: Carney announced dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs, but he also suggested that Canada has further significant leverage when it comes to U.S. energy imports. It’s not clear what the name change could achieve on this front. Again, it only applies to how the U.S. government refers to the lake. The body of water itself has a U.S. side and a Canada side, with the border cutting down the middle. Though in announcing the order, Deputy Staff Secretary Ben Moss said that the U.S. side is bigger.
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BEN MOSS: This is a lake that has most of its volume in the United States. The deepest parts of the lake sit in United States territory. So this will reflect that this is an American lake.
KURTZLEBEN: Meanwhile, polls have also repeatedly shown that a majority of Americans dislike Trump’s tariff policies.
Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News, the White House.
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