Google has changed the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America on its maps in the United States after an order by US President Donald Trump to rename the body of water as trade tensions escalate with Canada.
The tech giant said in a statement on Saturday that the name of the lake will be updated for US users but still appear as Lake Ontario in Canada. People outside the US and Canada will see both names.
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Google said the decision reflects the change made by the US Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
“These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now,” the company added.
Users in the US started reporting the update on Sunday.
Google followed a similar policy when Trump unilaterally renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America last year.
Apple Maps, which abided by Trump’s name change for the Gulf of Mexico, still shows the lake as Lake Ontario for users in the US as of Sunday.
The Trump administration on Thursday renamed the lake, which sits between the Canadian province of Ontario and the US state of New York, as a slight to Canada.
The US president had threatened to change the name of the lake as a retaliatory measure against Canada. Earlier this month, Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on some Canadian products after the two countries failed to reach a trade agreement. Canada retaliated with similar levies.
On Wednesday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney invoked the Indigenous roots of the name Ontario.
“The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big,'” he wrote 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 added that while the US is changing its trade relationships, foreign policy and names of its bodies of water, “naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.”
Over the past few days, Trump has shared several social media posts celebrating the name change.
He shared an AI-generated video on Saturday showing a flock of Canadian geese with his blond comb-over hairdo holding machineguns and patrolling “Lake America”. The post ends with the ducks firing their rifles in the air.
Trump’s critics have mocked the policy, arguing that the US is focused on trivial issues instead of tackling real problems that the country is facing, including the rising cost of living.
On Sunday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Trump’s order to rename the lake “was something out of Saturday Night Live”, a US comedy show created and produced by a Canadian.
“No one’s going to call it Lake America. It’s been Lake Ontario for hundreds of years. It’s going to continue to be Lake Ontario,” Ford told the US network ABC News.
The controversy over the name of the lake came after the latest episode in the trade war between the US and Canada.
Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has been using tariffs to increase the price of imports from foreign countries as he seeks to remedy what he sees as an unfair imbalance with Washington’s trading partners.
Canada has historically been one of the closest allies of the US. But as the third largest exporter to the US, Canada has become one of the most persistent targets of Trump’s trade wars.
Beyond trade woes, Trump has repeatedly questioned Canada’s status as a sovereign country.
In the first months of his second term, Trump referred to then-Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as governor, suggesting he was leading a US state, not an independent country.
