Trump weighs renaming Lake Ontario to 'Lake America' amid escalating trade war

US President Donald Trump announced he is considering renaming Lake Ontario to "Lake America" amid escalating trade tensions with Canada, posting on Truth Social that the US "doesn't expect to do much business with Ontario any longer." The proposal follows a pattern of renaming bodies of water, after the Gulf of Mexico was renamed "Gulf of America."

US President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he is considering renaming Lake Ontario to "Lake America" amid escalating trade tensions with Canada. In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that "the United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don't expect to do much business with Ontario any longer." Another post contained an image of a map with "Lake Ontario" crossed out and "Lake America" spelled out in gold letters with the American flag. The posts came amid a flurry of claims by Trump against Canada, including that it has been "ripping off the US for decades" by charging US farmers more than 400% in tariffs. Canadian and US officials have been caught up in an ongoing tit-for-tat tariff war for over a year. Canada on Tuesday hit back with retaliatory tariffs on about $20 billion worth of US annual imports, set to take effect on September 8, imposing duties of up to 50% on around 700 American products. Trump's new 50% tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian imports went into effect on Saturday after failed talks. Lake Ontario sits on the border between Canada and the US, with around 53% of it in Canada. Trump has previously attempted to rename another body of water — the Gulf of Mexico was renamed "Gulf of America" last year. Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc told CNBC that the federal government had decided "months ago not to respond to sort of the daily social media posts of either the president or his Cabinet secretaries."