US3 min(s) read
President Donald Trump has threatened to rename Lake Ontario to "Lake America" as tensions between the US and Canada continue to spiral amid an escalating tariff war.
The 80-year-old president floated the name change on Truth Social on Tuesday (August 25) morning.
"The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer," he wrote.
"Thank you for your attention to this matter!" he added.
Lake Ontario, the smallest of the five Great Lakes by surface area, separates the state of New York from the Canadian province of Ontario.
The statement comes at the end of a tumultuous week for relations between the neighboring countries.
Last weekend, the US imposed a 50 percent tariff on approximately $20 billion worth of Canadian imports after last-minute negotiations between Ottawa and Washington broke down.
The levies cover a wide range of Canadian products, including wine, hockey sticks, and honey.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney compared the move to armed conflict while speaking to reporters.
"You’re at war when you get attacked. We got attacked," Carney said on Sunday (August 23), per The Independent.
Carney added that Canada would respond with "dollar for dollar" retaliatory tariffs on US goods beginning September 8.
Trump escalated his rhetoric again on Monday (August 24), warning Canada of "far WORSE" consequences if its leaders did not "fall in line," per CNN.
He has repeatedly accused Canada of taking advantage of the US for decades and has taken aim at both Carney and Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
"Lots of ‘bluster’ from Doug Ford, who is the Premier of the Canadian Province of Ontario, but who is better known as the less charismatic, intelligent, and overall unimpressive brother of the late, great, Rob Ford," he wrote.
"Someone should get these clowns to ‘fall in line’ or, the consequences for Canada will be far WORSE!" he added.
Trump's suggestion that Lake Ontario could be renamed "Lake America" is not the first time he has tried to put the country's name on a major body of water bordering the United States.
On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order calling for the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the "Gulf of America."
US government agencies and the Coast Guard have since adopted the new name, although other countries have not recognized the change.
The decision also sparked a dispute between the White House and The Associated Press after the news organization continued referring to the body of water as the Gulf of Mexico.
The White House restricted the AP from Trump's events, but a federal judge eventually ruled against the administration, finding that its decision to punish the news organization was "unconstitutional".
