By Bhasha Singh
Along with the rest of the world, American citizens too are troubled by Trump’s latest obsession. Renaming places. First, it was the Gulf of Mexico, and now Lake Ontario, which lies along the Canada-US border. Questions are being raised over whether Trump is resorting to such bizarre tactics to maintain America’s dominance in global diplomacy. The world has already seen several rounds of Trump’s tariff wars, with India also among the countries targeted. This time, America’s neighbour Canada is in the firing line. Canada responded to Trump’s tariffs by announcing retaliatory tariffs on American products, which only seemed to further infuriate Trump. He then created another stir by threatening higher tariffs on Canada’s automobile and steel sectors.
Lake Ontario lies on the border between the United States and Canada, and one of Canada’s provinces also takes its name from the lake. The ongoing tariff war between the two countries has now taken a new turn. US President Donald Trump has issued an order renaming Lake Ontario, located along the Canada-US border, as “Lake America”. Among the new tools Trump uses to maintain American dominance in international diplomacy, the tariff war seems to come first. The second is putting an American stamp on everything.
By renaming the lake and posting a rather crude AI-generated video on social media, Trump has, in fact, laid his thinking bare before the world. In the video, Trump kicks away a Lake Ontario sign and replaces it with one saying “Lake America”. Watching it, one gets the impression of a child stubbornly insisting on having his own way. In response, Ontario Premier Doug Ford had a new sign installed by the lake: “Lake Ontario—Now and Always”. Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes shared by the United States and Canada. It has a total surface area of around 18,960 square kilometres and is about 311 kilometres long. The Canadian province of Ontario takes its name from the lake. The name Ontario predates the very existence of the United States. It is believed to have originated from the Indigenous Wendat/Huron word “Oniatarí”, one commonly cited meaning of which is “lake of shining waters”. Following Trump’s decision to rename it, Canada also pointedly reminded him that the lake existed long before the United States of America was born.
An interesting question is whether Trump can actually change the name of Lake Ontario for the entire world through an executive order. The answer is—no. He can certainly change the name for use by the US federal administration, including in official documents and maps, but his order has no authority in Canada, where it will continue to be known as Lake Ontario. Trump had earlier, in a similarly arbitrary move, renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”, drawing strong objections from Mexico. The issue also led to controversy over Google Maps. Users in the United States began seeing “Gulf of America”, those in Mexico continued to see “Gulf of Mexico”, while users elsewhere saw both names. Something similar is now happening with Lake Ontario. Google Maps displays the new name “Lake America” in the United States, while it remains “Lake Ontario” in Canada and both names are displayed in other countries. In other words, Trump’s insistence on renaming the Gulf of Mexico did not prevail across the world, and his order cannot determine a new name for the rest of the world for this lake shared with Canada either.
Trump’s popularity in the United States has, in fact, fallen to its lowest level following the war with Iran. Recent polls have put his approval rating at around 33 per cent. This raises another question: are all these tricks and tactics meant to keep him in the headlines and shift the agenda at a time of growing domestic political pressure? That, too, appears increasingly difficult at the moment.
Trump now seems prepared to use every tactic at his disposal to force neighbouring Canada to fall in line. But Canada, too, is playing its own “master card” in response to the Trump card. It has announced retaliatory tariffs on US products in response to American tariffs. Trump renamed Lake Ontario, and now the city council in Ottawa is considering changing the name of “Trump Avenue”. The tug of war between the two countries hardly resembles the conduct expected of established international diplomacy. But ever since Trump returned to the US presidency on January 20, 2025, such actions have increasingly become part of his diplomatic playbook. No one seems to know what Trump might do next. His credibility, too, has fallen to a new low amid these and other decisions.
The tariff war between the United States and Canada now risks turning into an escalating cycle of action and retaliation. Relations between the two countries deteriorated further after their trade negotiations broke down. The latest round of talks failed on August 21, after which the United States announced tariffs of up to 50 per cent on around C$28 billion, or roughly US$20 billion, worth of Canadian products. Trump has also threatened higher tariffs on Canada’s automobile and steel sectors. He went so far as to say that Canada wants all the benefits of being a US state without actually becoming one. For Canada, the remark was like rubbing salt into the wound.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded sharply. He said Canada would answer Trump’s tariffs “dollar for dollar”. Canada has announced retaliatory tariffs of 15, 25 and 50 per cent on selected US products from September 8, matching the corresponding US tariff rates. Carney said that the United States and Canada are now in a tariff war. For the moment, only time will tell who gains how much from this tariff war and the battle over names. What is clear, however, is that the US president’s standing has taken a serious hit. (IPA Service)
The author is a senior journalist
