President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America”, and then joked that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans might also be renamed. The move matters because it extends his administration’s effort to apply US-centred names to major geographic features, despite Lake Ontario being shared with Canada.

The order gives Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and the Board on Geographic Names 30 days to update the federal names database and require the new term on federal maps, contracts and communications. It does not determine Canada’s usage of the lake’s name. The administration cited almost $4 billion in US investment in Great Lakes freshwater ecosystems over the past decade, as well as the lake’s economic, trade and strategic importance; Trump made no formal proposal concerning either ocean.