President Donald Trump orders Lake Ontario renamed “Lake America,” drawing Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s Saturday Night Live comparison

President Donald Trump issued a presidential order renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” according to a White House posting of the action dated August 27. The order says it is issued “by the authority vested” in the president under the Constitution and federal laws, and it cites a prior executive order, Executive Order 14172 from January 20, 2025, titled “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness.” The White House order frames the change as a policy initiative honoring the “American history of the Great Lakes,” and it ties the renaming to the administration’s broader approach to names and recognition in federal materials.

The announcement drew immediate pushback from Canada’s Ontario government. In an interview with ABC’s “This Week” host Martha Raddatz that aired Sunday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford criticized Trump’s renaming as resembling “something out of Saturday Night Live,” according to The Hill. Ford also linked his reaction to a separate dispute over U.S. trade measures affecting Canadian goods, arguing that the broader approach toward Canada has been damaging to cross-border economic ties.

Ford’s interview came as the U.S.-Canada trade fight continues to affect household and business costs on both sides of the border. The Hill reported that Ford said the Trump administration’s trade war with Canada placed a 50 percent tariff on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, a figure Ford used to underscore his criticism of the overall policy direction. The White House materials supplied for this story focus on the Lake Ontario renaming order itself and do not address the tariff figures Ford referenced.

In the presidential order posted by the White House, Trump’s administration places the renaming within an implementation framework that begins with a stated policy purpose. The order, as published on White House Presidential Actions, begins with “Purpose and Policy,” and it establishes that recognizing the “American history of the Great Lakes” is the policy of the administration, referencing the earlier January 2025 executive order as the basis for that policy approach. The posting indicates the president is acting through executive authority and federal policy mechanisms rather than through an act of Congress.

The practical effects of the renaming order will depend on how federal agencies implement it in their public-facing and administrative materials. Presidential actions of this type typically guide how U.S. departments and offices use geographic names in communications, maps, and documentation, but the details of agency-by-agency rollout were not included in the material supplied for this report. Agencies would be expected to align internal naming conventions and external references with the presidential directive over time.

While Ford’s comments centered on the renaming’s symbolism, they also reflected a wider political dispute involving U.S. trade enforcement against Canada. The Hill reported that Ford’s criticism of “Lake America” came alongside his renewed condemnation of the administration’s tariff approach, setting up a contrast between the presidential action’s stated purpose of recognition and the Ontario government’s focus on economic costs and bilateral consequences.

As of the latest available record for this story, the renaming is backed by the White House posting of the presidential action dated August 27. The next steps, including any agency implementation guidance tied to the renaming, would be expected to appear through additional federal communications or directives. Ford and Ontario officials may continue to use the episode to press Canada’s case on trade and broader bilateral relations, but the legal status of the name change rests on the presidential order’s publication and the executive branch’s authority to set federal naming policy.