Canadian prime minister Mark Carney has rejected President Trump’s overtures regarding changing the name of “Lake Ontario.”
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at changing the name from Lake Ontario to Lake America.
The move reflected the worsening ties between two countries marked by escalatory trade war in which the US imposed new 50 percent tariffs on worth $20 billion Canadian goods. Canada also vowed to retaliate, pledging to implement “dollar-for-dollar” counter tariffs next month.
In response to the order, Mark Carney not only slammed this decision but also refused to accept it.
Talking to X, Carney posted that the name of Lake Ontario could be dated back more than 400 years, even as it preceded the formation of the US Declaration of Independence and the Canadian Confederation.
“We know that the United States is changing. Their trade relations, their foreign policy, their national monuments, their hydronyms.”
“Canadian women and men also know that things must be called by their name, and this lake is called Lake Ontario – today and forever.”
As per the executive order, the US Department of the Interior will be given 30 days to update the name change with Geographic Names Information Service, an official repository that deals with domestic geographic names in America.
Globally, there is not a universally recognized body that could set the names for international water bodies.
