U.S. President Donald Trump has asked Apple to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America” on its Maps app, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on Monday, days after the president signed an executive order targeting the Great Lake amid an escalating trade dispute with Canada. The lake lies between New York State and the Canadian province of Ontario, and the move is part of a broader spate of symbolic actions linked to higher tariffs on both sides of the border.
Burgum told Fox’s Mornings with Maria that Trump “reached out to Apple directly” and expressed confidence the new label would appear on Apple’s platform soon. Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment. As of Monday afternoon, Apple Maps still displayed the name Lake Ontario, with the label positioned notably above Canada’s waters.
Over the weekend, Google Maps had already begun showing “Lake America” to users in the United States. Google said the change followed the president’s order and its customary practice of using names from the U.S. Geographic Names Information System (GNIS). The company added that users in Canada would continue to see Lake Ontario, while international users might see both names.
Trump’s executive order directed the Interior Department to update the lake’s entry in the federal geographic naming system. The White House move cannot compel Canada to accept the change, and Ottawa quickly criticized the proposal. Canadian officials and commentators have rejected the renaming as unilateral and provocative.
Leaders of the Seneca Nation in upstate New York condemned the effort, saying it violates a treaty more than 225 years old and is a “blatant disrespect” to the Indigenous people who originally named the lake. Indigenous objections underline longer-standing tensions over place names and sovereignty in the region.
This is not the first time the administration has sought to rename transborder waters: last year, Trump ordered the Gulf of Mexico be called the Gulf of America in U.S. government usage, and both Apple and Google subsequently reflected that change for U.S. users. The latest episode highlights how domestic naming authorities and tech platforms can produce different maps for different countries, even when diplomatic consensus is absent.
Original Source: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/donald-trump-asks-apple-to-change-lake-ontario-name-to-lake-america-on-its-maps-amid-trade-tensions-with-canada-11984301#publisher=newsstand
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Publish Date: 2026-09-01 02:40:00
