During Iron Maiden's concert in Toronto on 29 August 2026, singer Bruce Dickinson pointedly used the name "Lake Ontario" while addressing the crowd, days after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing that the lake be renamed "Lake America". The remark echoed a wider political dispute, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had already vowed that Canada would continue calling it Lake Ontario, insisting the 400-year-old name predates both Canadian Confederation and American independence and would remain unchanged "then, now and always".

Trump's order applies only to US federal references to the lake and does not bind Canada or individual US states, some of which have pushed back: Rochester City Council unanimously affirmed it would keep using "Lake Ontario", and New York Governor Kathy Hochul said the renaming was a distraction from more pressing issues. It follows Trump's earlier renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America and Alaska's Denali back to Mount McKinley, and comes amid an escalating US-Canada trade war featuring reciprocal tariffs of up to 50% on billions of dollars of goods.