US President Donald Trump has suggested that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans could be renamed after his administration moved to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”
“We have a gulf and we have a lake. Now all we need is an ocean,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Thursday, August 27. “Maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them both.”
Trump made the remarks during a ceremony at which he signed an executive order concerning the way another major geographical feature would appear on US maps.
A day earlier, Trump had previewed the proposed renaming of Lake Ontario in a video posted to TikTok. Holding a Sharpie, he crossed out the lake’s existing name and wrote “LAKE AMERICA” above it.
“We’re gonna make a little change, we’re gonna call it something different than Lake Ontario,” Trump said in the video, adding that “all it takes is a good pen and some intelligence.”
During Thursday’s remarks, Trump also linked the move to his criticism of Canada’s trade relationship with the United States.
“Canada has been ripping us off for a long time on trade,” Trump said.
“They want to be treated like they’re a state and we just can’t do that anymore,” he added, saying the issue was something he had been considering for a long time.
