Fact Check: Did Trump announce buying Montreal Airport and renaming it Trump Airport?
WASHINGTON, DC: Following President Donald Trump's geographic renaming spree amid trade wars with Canada, an online post claimed that Trump announced buying the Montreal Airport and renaming it ‘Trump International Airport.’ The claim has sparked mockery and speculation, calling for a fact-check.
Claim: Trump announced renaming Montreal International Airport to ‘Trump International Airport’
The claim surfaced as a screenshot showing a post by the president on his official Truth Social handle.
The alleged post states, “Governor Mark Carney has begun the process of selling off Canada's infrastructures, such as highways and airports. For this reason, I have officially purchased the former "Pierre Elliott Trudeau" airport in Montreal, Canada, and renamed it to Trump International Airport. Thank you for your attention in this matter!”
The purported post was accompanied by an AI image of the airport building, ‘TRUMP INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.’
The screenshot has drawn more than a million views as of this writing, garnering mixed reactions from online users, with many in Canada criticizing and mocking the president, while a few others questioned its authenticity.
Fact Check: No such post exists on Trump's social media handles
The screenshot, however, is fake and fabricated, as no such post appears on any of Trump’s social media handles.
A search on his Truth Social handle for relevant keywords yielded no results that match the text in the screenshot. A search on commentary accounts on X that automatically archive all his Truth Social posts also did not yield any results.
If Trump had really made the post, it would not have gone unreported by prominent media outlets. A search on Google to check if he had posted and then deleted it returned no credible news reports.
Trump's geographic naming spree amid tensions with Canada
The claim surfaced amid the Trump administration’s recent geographic name-changing spree amid tensions with Canada over the increased tariff.
The development includes the signing of an executive order directing the federal government to use “Gulf of America” instead of Gulf of Mexico and the renaming of Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”
“As you know, we took something called the Gulf of Mexico, we changed it, and now it's very routinely the Gulf of America,” Trump said.
Trump also suggested eventually renaming the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as well in his social media posts.
