Trump's Trials - Trump signs order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America

Episode Date: August 28, 2026

President Trump has signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario as "Lake America." NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben reports.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detrow, and this is Trump's terms from NPR. Every episode, we bring you one story from NPR's coverage of the Trump administration with the focus on actions and policies that take the presidency into uncharted territory. Here's the latest from NPR. From NPR News, I'm A Martinez. On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an order renaming the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America. Now, he's made a similar move to rename Lake Ontario. Here's NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben.

Trump announced the proposed change in a video this week, using a Sharpie to rewrite the lake's name on a map. And all it takes is a good pen and some intelligence. So Lake Ontario, that's gone. Lake America. Yesterday, he signed an executive order changing the name for official U.S. government purposes. The reason, Trump said, is that Canada treats the U.S. unfairly on trade. People oftentimes, they'll ask me, who's the worst to deal with on trade?

And I said, that's easy. Canada. They are the worst to trade. And they feel entitled. And just we can't have that. Trump, in fact, negotiated a trade pact with Canada and Mexico in his first term, the USMCA. But despite that, he has repeatedly imposed or threatened tariffs on Canadian goods this term. Canada retaliated with measures like tariffs and boycotts. For example, pulling American booze off liquor stores.

shelves. Last week, 50% U.S. tariffs on a variety of Canadian goods took effect after trade talks broke down between the countries. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that the U.S. quote, asked too much and they offered too little. He added this. More fundamentally, the cumulative effect of U.S. demands revealed the limits of their commitment to a true economic partnership. Karni announced dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs, but he also suggested that Canada has further significant leverage when it comes to U.S. energy imports. It's not clear what the name change could achieve on this front. Again, it only applies to how the U.S. government refers to the lake.

The body of water itself has a U.S. side and a Canada side with the border cutting down the middle. Though in announcing the order, Deputy Staff Secretary Ben Moss said that the U.S. side is bigger. This is a lake that has most of its volume in the United States, the deepest parts of the lake sit in the United States territory. this will reflect the good as an American light. Meanwhile, polls have also repeatedly shown that a majority of Americans dislike Trump's tariff policies. Danielle Kurtzleben, NPR News, the White House. A note before we go, if you value this show and want to help keep it going,

a free and totally easy way to support us is to rate and review Trump's terms on the platform where you listen. In a world of algorithms, that goes a long way toward helping us reach new. If you have left a review in the past, thank you so much. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.