Lake America
Google redesignated Lake Ontario as "Lake America" on maps seen by US users on Sunday after President Donald Trump announced he was renaming the body of water, with a Canadian official slamming the cross-border tensions as "absolutely backwards."
People in Canada will still see the body of water labeled Lake Ontario, the Indigenous-rooted name used since the 17th century, on their devices and computers, the US-based tech giant said. Apple as of Sunday has maintained the name Lake Ontario on its Maps app.
Google said it made its change in line with the US Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), the official federal database for geographic names. "Since we update Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, which is GNIS for the US, people using Maps in the US will see 'Lake America,' those in Canada will continue to see 'Lake Ontario,' and those outside the US and Canada will see both names," Google said on its blog.
Trade war escalates
The nomenclatural spat erupted as the latest element of Trump's "America First" narrative, with the longtime allies ramping up a trade war that has seen Washington and Ottawa slap tit-for-tat tariffs on each other. Trump launched a new salvo of criticism Sunday, taking aim at the auto industry. "I don't want Canadian cars, I don't want Canadian parts, I don't want Canadian anything," Trump seethed on his Truth Social platform.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford offered fresh criticism of the trade dispute and the lake name change. "It's absolutely backwards. It was like something out of 'Saturday Night Live' when he signed a document saying, changed to 'Lake America.' No one's going to call it Lake America," Ford told ABC. "It's just so disappointing."
Ford also warned that while a trade war would harm both countries, "it'd be definitely devastating on the US" given that Canada has been by far the largest purchaser of US vehicles. Should those buys dry up, US auto factories would be hit hard. "A tariff on Canada is nothing more than a tax on American people," he said. "It's probably the worst move you could ever do."
The change mirrors Trump's unilateral altering of the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in January 2025, a move Mexico has also rejected. Ontario is the smallest by surface area of the five Great Lakes, which straddle the Canada-US border between Ontario province and the US state of New York.