As he signed the order on Thursday in the Oval Office, Trump said it wasn’t a direct message to Canada, but that America’s northern neighbour “has been ripping us off for a long time on trade”.
Trump said he’d been thinking about renaming the lake “for a long time”.
“So if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake,” Trump said.
“Now, all we need is an ocean. So maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them both.”
The name change request comes amid a trade dispute that has seen US-Canada relations fall to new lows, with insults thrown back-and-forth between the Trump administration and Canadian officials over the past week.
There was a hint on Thursday that there was room for a return to the negotiating table sometime in the future.
Canadian US trade minister, Dominic LeBlanc, said in a post on X that the US had withdrawn some of its demands around labelling requirements in French “and is confirming that measures to promote French language and Canadian culture will not be subject to future US trade actions”.
“We look forward to further constructive US clarifications on their other positions, which would create the possibility of a mutually beneficial trade agreement that respects Canadian sovereignty”.
Trade talks collapsed at the last minute late on Friday night, with both sides accusing the other of demanding last-minute changes to a tentative deal.
Democratic lawmaker Debbie Dingell of Michigan, the US state that borders four of the five Great Lakes, said that she would introduce a bill in Congress to nullify the name change, calling Trump’s order “idiotic”.
She wrote, “The Great Lakes are a shared treasure that generations of Americans and Canadians have worked together to protect”.
Other Democratic lawmakers in the US also criticised the order on social media, calling for the Trump administration to get back to negotiating on a trade deal. Some mocked Trump’s idea and posted their own ideas to change the names of other landmarks.
Wisconsin’s governor joked, “I just renamed Lake Michigan Lake Wisconsin,” in a social media post with a video of himself signing a napkin on one of the Great Lakes. “See, I can sign napkins that say things, too,” he added.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said her state, the sole US state bordering Lake Ontario, “won’t be calling it” Lake America.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum applauded the move, writing, “We’re on it, Mr. President!”
“The places and waters that border our nation and support our economy should reflect the greatness of the United States,” he said, adding that the US Geological Survey “maps our country for the world to see, and we are PROUD to implement your Executive Order to rename LAKE AMERICA”.
