President Donald Trump floated the idea of changing the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” on Tuesday amid his ongoing trade feud with Canada, a pitch that was met with collective sighs by critics who spoke to their exhaustion with the chaotic Trump administration.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump claimed that his administration was “giving serious consideration” to the name change as he did not “expect to [be] doing much business with Ontario any longer.” The idea is similar to his executive order issued in early 2025 to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” a move that received intense scrutiny at the time.
Regarding Trump’s latest name-change idea — one that came amid Trump imposing 50% tariffs on some Canadian goods, and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowing to match said tariffs “dollar for dollar” — critics were quick to condemn it.
The Bulwark's Sam Stein quipped on X, "He's out of ideas."
Stephen Hayes, editor and CEO at The Dispatch, mocked, "It's still astonishing - ten years into the Trump era - that our president so often behaves like a 10 year-old. And that so much of our national policymaking is based on the juvenile emoting of an adult who functions like a preteen."
“We are living in the stupidest f------ times,” wrote Jason Willan, a prominent fantasy sports analyst, in a social media post on X.
Roland Ley, a former contributor for Euromaidan Press, called Trump the “greatest idiot” he had witnessed in his “lifetime.”
“Just as internationally 'Gulf of America' isn't recognised, this won't be either,” Ley wrote in a social media post on X. “Not even passed by the US Senate anyway.”
In response to Trump’s announcement, Canadian horse-racing photographer Julie Wright quipped, “Lunatic says what,” and prominent online influencer Mario Nawfal argued that Trump’s trade war was “getting silly” in a post on X to his more than 3.8 million followers.
“It would require a lot more than a President’s bad mood to change the name of a gulf or great lake!” Nawfal wrote. “Maybe a vote or something a bit more thought out.”