(AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he was considering renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America” as his trade war with Canada escalated. The threat — which Trump backed up with a map featuring the new name — mirrored his move to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America last year.
Trump stepped up his rhetoric as Canada announced a volley of tit-for-tat tariffs on US goods after trade talks between the historically close allies broke down on Friday. “The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes located on the border between Canada and the United States. It shares a name with the Canadian province of Ontario, which borders the lake along with the US state of New York. Toronto, Canada’s largest city, sits on the northwestern shore of the lake.
Trump later posted a map with the words “Lake Ontario” crossed out and replaced with “Lake America” in large gold font with a US flag, which was boosted by pro-Trump social media accounts. The lake threat comes as Trump reups his push for Canada to become the 51st US state and the trade war between the two countries escalates.
But it also reflects a peculiarly personal spat with Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who said Monday that the US president could “kiss my ass” and threatened a surcharge on exported electricity. During his second presidency, Trump has irked a series of allies with his outlandish territorial claims. Mexico has refused to accept his executive order renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America on his first day back in office on January 20.
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