Mark Carney Handles Trump’s ‘Lake America’ Order By Pointing Out What ‘Ontario’ Really Means

Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press via AP

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded Thursday to President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming Lake Ontario, “Lake America.”

Trump held the executive order signing during an Oval Office press conference earlier Thursday, where he claimed, “This is official, effective immediately.”

Backlash was swift on the left, with Republican Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) joining in by calling the president, “Childish. Completely childish.”

Carney took the high road on X, writing, “The name of Lake Ontario derives from the Wendat word « Ontari’io », which means « the lake is beautiful, the lake is great ».

“This name dates back more than 400 years, well before the Canadian Confederation and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America,” Carney continued. “We know that the United States is changing. Their trade relations, their foreign policy, their national monuments, their hydronyms. Canadian women and men also know that things must be called by their name, and this lake is called Lake Ontario – today and forever.”

The “hydronym” reference ostensibly relates to Trump also renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”

Trump’s action was a direct result of a trade dispute with Canada that blew up over the weekend, despite Trump saying he’s been thinking about renaming the lake “for a long time.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a gaggle of reporters Thursday that Carney “used” the failed trade talks for his own political gain ahead of Canada’s October elections.

“We negotiated and Canada was going to have the best trade deal in the world,” Lutnick said. “And what happened was that Canada walked away — we had a deal, we shook hands, the president announced it, right? And everybody was positive. Canada made the decision for political purposes. They wanted to walk away. This is politics only.”

After the talks collapsed, Trump announced he was imposing 50% retaliatory tariffs on Canadian goods, which Carney then said he would match on U.S. goods coming into Canada.

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