Donald Trump’s latest attempt to needle Canada over a trade dispute has instead sparked widespread ridicule online.
The president teased plans to rename Lake Ontario—which straddles the U.S.-Canada border—Lake America earlier this week.
And Trump, 80, appears intent on following through with his threat, posting a video on TikTok showing him striking through the name Lake Ontario on a map and writing “Lake America” in its place.
However, TikTok users quickly noticed a mistake.
In the video, Trump said, “So this is Lake Ontario in Canada and in the United States, but we’re going to make a little change. We’re going to call it something different than Lake Ontario. We’re going to call it Lake America. And all it takes is a good pen and some intelligence. So Lake Ontario, that’s gone. Lake America. So now we have a lake and now we have a Gulf because we have the Gulf of America and now we have Lake America,” he said.
Trump appeared to mix up his upper and lowercase letters, instead writing, “LAKe AMeRiCA”.
The criticism came in fast.
One user wrote, “The President mixing uppercase and lowercase letters?😭”
Others branded the stunt “embarrassing,” while another wrote: “This guy is going insane.”
“We will always call it Lake Ontario,” one commenter said.
Some users questioned why Trump was concentrating on changing the name of a lake, while energy prices were climbing amid his war with Iran.
“The economy is sinking and he worries about a fking lake!!” one person wrote.
Another asked: “Does this lower gas prices??”
Trump floated the idea after trade negotiations with Canada collapsed.
Last week, Trump said U.S. and Canadian negotiators had struck a deal to avoid his threatened 50 percent tariffs on Canadian imports. Canada rejected the proposal as a “bad deal,” and talks subsequently broke down.
Trump then moved ahead with 50 percent tariffs on about $20 billion in Canadian goods.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney retaliated by doubling tariffs on American steel and aluminum and imposing additional measures affecting roughly $20 billion in U.S. exports.
Amid the trade tensions, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer.”
He followed it with a doctored map showing a large red X over “Lake Ontario” and “Lake America” in oversized gold lettering alongside an American flag.
The historical name long predates both modern nations. “Ontario” is believed to come from an Indigenous term meaning either “beautiful water” or “great lake.”
Any name change made by Trump would not affect Canada’s name for the lake.
Relations between Washington and Ottawa were already strained after Trump repeatedly threatened to turn Canada into the 51st state.
