How much would renaming Lake Ontario cost the U.S.? CBO points to the ‘closest precedent’
- President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” requiring U.S. federal agencies to update maps and databases, potentially costing up to US$500,000 based on similar previous renaming efforts like the Gulf of Mexico.
- The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) highlighted that while updates would incur costs, most agencies could offset expenses through adjusted fees, making overall additional spending negligible; renaming both Lake Ontario and the Gulf of Mexico might total around US$1 million.
- The renaming has been met with strong opposition from Canadian and U.S. politicians, local communities, and the public, with Ontario Premier Doug Ford erecting a $25,000 Lake Ontario sign and polls showing about two-thirds of Americans oppose the change.
- Trump’s renaming actions follow escalating trade tensions with Canada and mirror previous and ongoing efforts to rename geographic and governmental entities, including suggestions to rename New Mexico to “New America” and the Department of Defense to the “Department of War,” which could cost significantly more to implement.
Renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America” will come at a cost to federal agencies in the U.S. that are responsible for updating maps and databases, and a previous report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) offers insight into how expensive this could be.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order changing the name of the lake on Aug. 27, which directed the Department of the Interior to update maps and databases to reflect the new name.
It’s not the first time Trump has sought to rename a major body of water. In January 2025, he signed an executive order changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.”
Following this, in April 2025, CBO published a report estimating that the Gulf of Mexico name change could cost up to US$500,000 between 2025 and 2030.
In an email to National Post, a spokesperson for CBO said: “CBO hasn’t published an estimate for H.R. 10196, the Lake America Act. The closest precedent is the estimate for H.R. 276, the Gulf of America Act. While that estimate can’t automatically be applied to Lake Ontario, it can provide a sense of how CBO has previously treated similar legislation.”
The 2025 report said the estimate was based on the cost of similar activities that involved updating documents and maps. It added that the Gulf of America Act “could affect direct spending by some agencies that are allowed to use fees, receipts from the sale of goods, and other collections to cover operating costs.”
However, CBO estimated that any changes in spending by those agencies would be negligible because “most of them can adjust amounts collected to reflect changes in operating costs.”
If the cost of renaming Lake Ontario does come in at a similar figure to the estimate for the Gulf of Mexico, it would mean U.S. federal agencies may have spent as much as US$1 million on renaming the two bodies of water.
Elsewhere, the CBO issued another report earlier this year estimating the cost of introducing “Department of War” as a secondary title for the U.S. Department of Defense, after Trump signed an executive order authorizing the use of the new name in September 2025.
It said a “modest implementation” of the name could cost US$10 million, or as much as US$125 million if the name change was implemented “broadly and rapidly.” A statutory renaming, the CBO said, could cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, over the weekend, Trump suggested renaming New Mexico to “New America” in a post on Truth Social, accompanied by an AI-crafted video of him changing a roadside billboard and dancing.
Another post that showed a map of New Mexico with “Mexico” crossed out and replaced by “America” was reminiscent of posts he made before renaming Lake Ontario.
New media post from Donald J. Trump
( TS: Sep 7 2026, 10:42 AM ET ) pic.twitter.com/yNtvVjqSYt
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) September 7, 2026
Trump’s executive order renaming Lake Ontario came after a breakdown in trade negotiations between Canada and the U.S. last month, which saw Prime Minister Mark Carney announce dollar-for-dollar counter tariffs that come into effect on Tuesday.
Politicians on both sides of the border have condemned the name change, with Ontario Premier Doug Ford erecting a new Lake Ontario sign at a cost of $25,000 in Winona, Ont., shortly after Trump signed the executive order.
Unveiling the sign in a video posted on X, Ford said: “Long before President Trump, this lake was called Lake Ontario. And long after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario. But just in case President Trump or anyone else forgets, we have set up a sign to remind them, it’s Lake Ontario now and forever.”
It’s Lake Ontario, now and always. pic.twitter.com/KNahtPAMeJ
— Doug Ford (@fordnation) August 29, 2026
In the U.S., politicians including former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders have criticized Trump’s actions on social media.
And Robert Corradino, a Republican and mayor of Oswego, a city in New York State on the shore of Lake Ontario, previously told National Post that his community is taking the renaming of Lake Ontario “very personally.”
“Lake Ontario is in the DNA of Osweganians,” he said, adding, “Everything that we are emanates from the lake.”
Elsewhere, polling has revealed that most Americans are against the name change, with Economist/YouGov research finding 68 per cent of Americans strongly or somewhat disapproved of the move. A separate poll conducted by Ipsos published a similar result, with 63 per cent opposing Trump’s executive order.