WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order Friday officially renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”
The President further upped the stakes in the ongoing North American trade spat by warning Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney that if a formal apology for recent paper tariffs is not issued by Monday, Lake Superior will be legally rebranded as “Lake Even Better.”
The President announced the change during a standing-room-only press conference in the Rose Garden, flanked by a massive, gold-flecked map of North America.
“For too long, we’ve allowed our northern border to be defined by words that nobody understands. Ontario? What is an Ontario? It sounds very weak, very French, very low-energy,” Trump told reporters. “I looked at the water. It’s a lot of water. It’s beautiful water. But it’s sitting there with a name that sounds like a brand of crackers. From this moment forward, it is Lake America. It’s the greatest name for a lake. People are saying it’s the most American lake they’ve ever seen.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later clarified that the Department of the Interior has already begun the process of air-dropping floating “Lake America” buoys along the maritime border, each equipped with a waterproof speaker playing a loop of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A..”
The rebranding comes as tensions between Washington and Ottawa reach a boiling point. Following Canada’s recent 50% tariff on American-made paper products, the Trump administration has pivoted away from traditional economic retaliation.
“They want to tax our napkins? They want to tax our toilet paper? It’s very disrespectful,” Trump said. “If they want to play the paper game, we’ll play the map game. We have the best maps. We have the best names. Canada is lucky I don’t rename the St. Lawrence River ‘The Donald J. Trump Memorial Slip-and-Slide.’ But we’re starting with Ontario.”
Sources within the administration suggest the President was particularly incensed by a recent shipment of Canadian maple syrup that arrived with “slightly soggy” labels, which he reportedly took as an insult to American adhesive quality.
While the renaming of Lake Ontario has sent shockwaves through the International Hydrographic Organization, the President saved his most potent threat for the largest of the Great Lakes.
“Lake Superior. It’s a big lake. A very big, cold lake,” Trump noted. “But ‘Superior’ is a bit arrogant, don’t you think? It’s a very elite word. It’s a Globalist word. If Prime Minister Carney doesn’t call me by 9:00 a.m. Monday to apologize for the paper thing and maybe throw in a few thousand hectares of Yukon territory as a ‘peace gesture,’ we’re changing the name to ‘Lake Even Better.’ And believe me, it will be. We’ll put more fish in it. Better fish. American fish.”
The Canadian government issued a brief statement Friday afternoon, noting that “international bodies of water cannot be renamed via Sharpie.” In response, the White House released a digital rendering of a planned 400-foot-tall neon sign to be anchored in the middle of the lake that reads: “USA #1 - CANADA SMELLS.”
Environmentalists have expressed concerns that the renaming process could confuse migratory birds, but the administration dismissed these fears, stating that “any bird that doesn’t know it’s in Lake America shouldn’t be flying in our airspace anyway.”
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