Food’s Still Unsafe, But Don’t Worry, Trump Signed An EO Renaming Lake Ontario [Op-Ed]

At a time when it seems like every system in America is on fire, I’m glad to know President Donald Trump is keeping his priorities firmly in line. Trump signed an executive order on Thursday changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America. 

Boy, the times keep getting sillier, don’t they? 

AP reports that the executive order directs the Interior Department to change the name in the U.S. geographic naming service, but of course, it can’t demand that Canada honors the name change. The move comes as Trump intensified a trade war with Canada for reasons no one understands. Trump has tried to justify the trade war by accusing Canada of “ripping us off for a long time” but hasn’t provided any specific examples of how. 

After trade talks failed between the two countries, Trump decided to impose a 50% tariff on $20 billion of Canadian goods. Canada didn’t take that lying down and imposed a retaliatory 50% tariff on American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.

Canadian officials were understandably dismissive of the move. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney invoked the lake’s indigenous roots, explaining that it derived from the “Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big,’” in a social media post.

“The name is more than 400 years old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America,” Carney wrote. “Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always,” he wrote.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has not been afraid to verbally spar with Trump, said in a social media post that “It’s Lake Ontario to Canadians and the rest of the world. Now and forever.”

Even New York Gov. Kathy Hochul spoke out against the executive order. “New York won’t be calling it that,” Hochul wrote in a social media post. 

Throughout his second term, Trump has shown a strange obsession with renaming buildings and bodies of water. One of the first actions he took upon taking office was signing an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Trump noted during signing that he may not be done renaming bodies of water.

“So, if you think about it, we have a gulf, and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean,” Trump said. “So maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them.”

Bro. An alarming amount of our food is unsafe to eat, people are dying of measles, climate events are getting deadlier, people are struggling to afford the basic necessities, and we’re talking about renaming oceans. Not the economy. Not food safety. Oceans. 

Trump has been weirdly combative with Canada, one of our closest allies, throughout his second term. One of the narrative throughout Trump’s first year were persistent threats to turn Canada into the “51st State.” How that would work, given the country’s size and autonomy, I have no idea. 

While Trump said the order would go into effect immediately upon signing, the executive order gives the Interior Department 30 days to make the changes. 

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