Albany, New York — Gov. Kathy Hochul said New York will continue calling Lake Ontario by its traditional name despite President Donald Trump’s executive order directing the federal government to rename it “Lake America.”
“New York won’t be calling it that,” Hochul wrote Thursday on X, joining Democratic and Republican state leaders who criticized the change.
Trump signed the executive order Thursday amid an escalating trade dispute with Canada. The federal designation applies to U.S. government agencies, maps and documents but does not require New York state or Canada to adopt the new name.
Lake Ontario borders New York and the Canadian province of Ontario and connects the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence Seaway. Its watershed is home to roughly 5.6 million people in both countries, according to the Center for Great Lakes Literacy.
Vermont Republican Gov. Phil Scott also criticized Trump’s decision, while Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers mocked it by posting a video in which he wrote “Lake Wisconsin” on a McDonald’s napkin as a proposed replacement for Lake Michigan.
The dispute comes as U.S.-Canada trade tensions deepen. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced retaliatory tariffs in response to new U.S. tariffs scheduled to take effect Sept. 8.
Trump previously used an executive order to direct federal agencies to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”
Sources
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