5 bizarre moments in Trump’s ‘Lake America’ battle as Canada puts up giant defiant sign along the border

The unusual dispute began escalating earlier in the week when Trump floated changing the name of Lake Ontario amid worsening tensions with Canada. Trump subsequently shared a graphic depicting the Great Lake as 'Lake America' and posted a video showing himself using a marker to cross out 'Lake Ontario' on a map and replace it with his preferred name. On August 27, Trump took the idea a significant step further by signing an executive order directing the Interior secretary and US Board on Geographic Names to take action within 30 days to adopt 'Lake America.' Trump made the renaming a spectacle in the Oval Office, where he displayed a map carrying the words “Lake America” while discussing the executive order.

The president told reporters that changing the lake’s name was something he had contemplated for some time. “The Lake of America was something I’ve been thinking about for a long time actually,” Trump said. He jokingly suggested he might not be finished. “If you think about it, we have a gulf, we have a lake, now all we need is an ocean,” Trump said, before floating the possibility of changing the name of the Atlantic or Pacific.

Canadian leaders made clear they had no intention of adopting Trump's preferred name. Prime Minister Mark Carney responded by invoking the history of Lake Ontario, whose name has Indigenous roots and predates the creation of both modern Canada and the United States “Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always,” Carney said.

Ford then transformed Canada's objection into something considerably harder to miss. The Ontario premier traveled to the lakefront near Grimsby to unveil a massive sign declaring: 'Lake Ontario. Now and Always.' The sign measures roughly 24 feet wide and 12 feet high, according to AP, giving Canada's response the dimensions of a billboard.

Ford leaned into the patriotic imagery for the appearance, wearing a red Team Canada soccer jersey as he stood alongside the enormous blue-and-white installation. Ford also made clear that the display was meant to last. “Lake Ontario will always be Lake Ontario, long after President Trump is gone,” the premier said at the unveiling. He suggested more signs could follow, including installations at locations along the lake.

The Lake Ontario order continues Trump's penchant for using geographic names as expressions of his “America First” agenda. On his first day back in office in January 2025, Trump ordered federal agencies to adopt “Gulf of America” for the Gulf of Mexico and restore the name Mount McKinley to the Alaskan mountain officially known as Denali under the previous federal designation. His latest executive order explicitly cites that earlier policy as precedent.