‘Sad and pathetic’: U.S. politicians condemn Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario
- U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” sparking widespread criticism from American political leaders who see it as a distraction from poor trade negotiations with Canada.
- Prominent figures including Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and New York politicians condemned the renaming, emphasizing that Americans are more concerned with issues like healthcare, housing, and education than renaming a lake.
- Canadian leaders, including Prime Minister Mark Carney and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, rejected the change, highlighting the lake’s 400-year-old name rooted in Indigenous language and insisting it cannot be renamed unilaterally by the U.S.
- The executive order claims the U.S. controls most of the lake’s volume and directs the Department of the Interior to update official maps, continuing Trump’s pattern of renaming geographic features, as he did with the Gulf of Mexico last year.
Political leaders in America are pushing back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to rename Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” calling it “sad and pathetic” and accusing him of trying to distract from “disastrous trade talks with Canada.”
The criticism comes after Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that he said would “immediately” change the name of the lake.
When asked what message he was trying to send Canada with the renaming of the lake, the U.S. President replied: “No message,” adding that “Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade, very sadly,” and that “we defend Canada for nothing; they don’t pay us.”
U.S. politicians condemning Trump’s executive order include former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who wrote, “It’s Lake Ontario,” in a post on X, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said, “The American people don’t want to rename Lake Ontario Lake America.”
He added: “They want affordable healthcare, childcare, housing, education & nutrition assistance — all of which you have massively cut in order to pay for your $1 trillion tax break to the top 1%.”
It’s Lake Ontario.
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 27, 2026
No, President Trump. The American people don’t want to rename Lake Ontario Lake America.
They want affordable healthcare, childcare, housing, education & nutrition assistance — all of which you have massively cut in order to pay for your $1 trillion tax break to the top 1%. https://t.co/G6dmmW1ITg
— Sen. Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 27, 2026
Elsewhere, politicians in New York, the state bordering Ontario, also expressed opposition to the name change.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office said in a post: “An acronym for the Great Lakes used to be HOMES. Thanks to Donald Trump, it’s now SHAME.”
Chuck Schumer, the U.S. Senate minority leader, called the order “sad and pathetic,” and U.S. Rep. Joe Morelle suggested the renaming is “an attempted distraction from the President’s disastrous trade talks with Canada.”
In a social media post, he said: “While Rochester families deal with the impacts of a trade war he started, President Trump is playing games with a map.”
Pretending to rename a lake is an attempted distraction from the President's disastrous trade talks with Canada.⁰While Rochester families deal with the impacts of a trade war he started, President Trump is playing games with a map.⁰We deserve better than this. https://t.co/8IqcXbT0Kz
— Joe Morelle (@RepJoeMorelle) August 25, 2026
Outside of New York, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker said he’d rather see every hospital that had been closed due to Trump’s policies renamed “the Donald Trump Memorial Hospital” than for there to be a “Lake America.”
Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock said in a social media post that while Americans “can’t afford to fill up their tank…our President is spending his day renaming a lake.” He added: “What a joke.”
And Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy wrote that Trump spending “all his time on this BS” is the reason why Americans’ gas and grocery prices are so high.
The official X account for U.S. House Democrats posted: “It’s too expensive to live and Donald Trump is renaming lakes.”
It's too expensive to live and Donald Trump is renaming lakes. https://t.co/V338ZPp6Fc
— House Democrats (@HouseDemocrats) August 27, 2026
Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes, is located between New York State and Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, home to about 16 million people.
Prime Minister Mark Carney responded to Trump’s actions shortly after the executive order was signed, explaining on social media that “the name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big’.”
He added that the name is more than 400 years old and predates both Canadian Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence.
“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms,” he wrote. “Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”
The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means “the lake is beautiful, the lake is big”.
The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.…
— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) August 27, 2026
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre echoed Carney’s sentiment, adding that the lake is not Trump’s “to rename on a whim.”
“Our two countries have real trade issues that impact our people,” he wrote on X. “Instead of responding to stunts and distractions, Canadians must stay focused on what we can control: making our economy strong and affordable at home and using our leverage to fight tariffs abroad.”
Elsewhere, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew responded to the news at a press conference, comparing Trump to an over-the-hill rock band and calling the name change “not his best work.”
Former Conservative MP Tony Clement weighed in on X with the question: “What should Canadians henceforth refer to Lake Michigan as?”
Lake Ontario is and will always be Lake Ontario, and no executive order will change that. It doesn't belong to President Donald Trump to rename on a whim.
Our two countries have real trade issues that impact our people. Instead of responding to stunts and distractions, Canadians…
— Pierre Poilievre (@PierrePoilievre) August 27, 2026
The executive order Trump signed reads: “The body of water currently known as Lake Ontario is a tremendous asset to the United States and part of our Nation’s heritage. With the deepest parts of the Lake’s waters lying within United States territory, the United States claims most of the Lake’s volume.”
It also orders the Department of the Interior to update maps and databases to rename the lake.
This is not the first time Trump has renamed a body of water. Last year, he signed an executive order calling for the Gulf of Mexico to be renamed the “Gulf of America” — though other countries have not adopted the name change.