Trump contacted Apple directly to change name of Lake Ontario to Lake America: Burgum

Users in Canada will still see it displayed as Lake Ontario on Google Maps, while people elsewhere in the world will see both names.

Apple has not yet responded to a request for comment.

In a social media post Thursday, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canadians know Lake Ontario will be known by its original name, “then, now and always.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled a large sign declaring “Lake Ontario, now and always” lakeside on Saturday, while Trump spent much of the weekend posting on social media about the name change and making inaccurate claims about Canada.

Republicans and members of Trump’s administration fanned out across U.S. news stations Monday to make the case for the name change and Trump’s tariffs on Canada.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC he was meeting his Canadian counterpart at the gathering of G20 finance ministers in North Carolina this week.

When asked whether the U.S. is in a “tit-for-tat” trade war with Canada, Bessent said, “I don’t think you can be in a tit-for-tat with someone who’s 13 times larger than you are.”

He accused Carney of turning the trade talks into a “political shouting match” and said the U.S. isn’t at war with Canada.

“What are they going to do, take their two submarines from the Edmonton mall and sic them on us?” Bessent said.

When Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland was asked about trade tensions on the far-right Newsmax news service, he suggested the United States make Alberta the 51st state and said there’s “tremendous oil reserves there.”

“The socialism doesn’t work in Western Canada,” he said. “A lot of those provinces don’t want to be associated with Ottawa and the president is taking advantage of it.”

But the move to change Lake Ontario’s name has faced widespread pushback, even from members of the Republican party. And the trade conflict could prove critical for Republican candidates in states that trade heavily with Canada as midterm and gubernatorial elections loom.

Wisconsin Public Radio reported that Tom Tiffany, the Trump-backed Republican candidate for governor in that state, told reporters last week that the Great Lakes should keep their original names. Republican Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont last week called the move disappointing.

Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes, is located between Ontario and New York. The name comes from the Wendat word Ontari:io, which means “the lake is beautiful, the lake is big.”

The Canadian province is named after the lake.

Indigenous leaders on both sides of the border have decried Trump’s order as blatantly disrespectful and a violation of treaties.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse said Monday that Indigenous languages, people and nations existed long before Confederation or the U.S. Constitution.

“I stand with First Nations and all those who call for respect for the name, for the First Peoples, and for our shared history,” she said. “Like the lake itself, our people will be here long after any administration has come and gone.”

Trade talks between Canada and the United States fell apart Aug. 21 when the countries accused each other of last-minute changes to a proposed interim trade deal.

Trump first threatened to change the name of Lake Ontario during a war of words with Premier Ford. The premier called the president a bully and a loser on Aug. 24, while Trump said Ford was a “less charismatic” and less intelligent version of his late brother Rob.

Trump signed a similar executive order last year to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

The order applies only to U.S. federal documents and geographic services, but some online map services and American news agencies have taken to calling it the Gulf of America.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2026.

— With files from Kyle Duggan and Alessia Passafiume in Ottawa and Tara Deschamps in Toronto

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press

by The Canadian Press

Trump contacted Apple directly to change name of Lake Ontario to Lake America: Burgum

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