The U.S. agency that provides weather forecasts and warnings to the public is implementing President Donald Trump’s name change for Lake Ontario, now dubbed “Lake America.”
The National Weather Service, which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, announced on Monday that “work is underway to update naming conventions as quickly as possible on online maps, weather products, websites and other materials across the NWS,” in accordance with Trump’s executive order on the lake.
The NWS and the NOAA are in turn part of the Department of Commerce, and all executive branch agencies are required to follow any presidential orders.
The NWS already uses “Gulf of America” instead of the Gulf of Mexico and “Mount McKinley” instead of Denali, reflecting Trump’s previous efforts to rename bodies of water and geographical landmarks to “honor American greatness” — without securing congressional approval.
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The U.S. Geological Survey, a science and mapping agency inside the Department of the Interior, also changed its maps to reflect “Lake America.”
Lake Ontario sits on the border between the U.S. and Canada, and the two countries have been locked in an escalating trade war.
“I find Canada to be the worst country to deal with,” Trump told reporters Sunday on Air Force One. “With that being said, they’re dying to make a deal.”
When asked about Canada’s willingness to make a deal, Prime Minister Mark Carney told Bloomberg, “I’d say what we’ve been saying all along, which is that there is a mutually advantageous agreement that’s possible between Canada and the United States,” adding that he welcomes the Trump’s comments and he is ready to “sit down and negotiate.”
Carney appears willing to work through trade talks with the U.S. despite Trump’s push to change the name of their shared body of water, but Ontario Premier Doug Ford has taken a much harder line against the president.
Ford erected a large, two-story billboard last month that says “Lake Ontario Now and Always” in Grimsby, a Canadian city on the shore of the lake.
“Long before President Trump, this lake was called Lake Ontario. Long after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario,” Ford said standing in front of the billboard in a video posted to X on Aug. 29.
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