Google has updated its Maps application, labeling Lake Ontario as Lake America for users in the United States, following an executive order signed by President Trump last week amid an escalating trade war with Canada.
The decision of the tech giant reflects what it did when Mr. Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America last year.
The change has started to be rolled out, Google said in a blog post, adding that it was following its practice of using the name given by the U.S. Geographic Names Information System.
“People using Maps in the U.S. will see “Lake America,” those in Canada will continue to see “Lake Ontario,” and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names,” Google said in its statement.
Mr. Trump’s decision to rename the lake on Thursday was met with derision and shrugs in Canada and across the United States, and sparked a series of online memes and late-night jokes.
He leaned into his decision, posting an A.I.-generated video depicting ducks armed with semiautomatic weapons and donning his signature quiff, shooting the guns and seemingly protecting a lake under a sign that read “Lake America.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada walked away from fraught U.S. trade talks on Aug. 21, over what he called a “bad deal” that would harm Canada’s economy and sovereignty. He has since responded to the renaming of the lake with a statement about its history, noting that Ontario is a historical Indigenous name for the lake that predates the creation of Canada and the United States.
“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms,” Mr. Carney said in his post on Thursday. “Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”
Premier Doug Ford of Ontario on Saturday unveiled a large sign by the lake in Winona, Ontario, that read “Lake Ontario Now and Always” and repeated the same in French, as is standard in Canada: “Lac Ontario Aujourd’hui et pour toujours.”
“It was like something out of ‘Saturday Night Live’ when he signed a document saying change it to Lake America,” Mr. Ford said on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” broadcast on Sunday. “No one’s going to call it Lake of America. It’s been Lake Ontario for hundreds of years. It’s going to continue being Lake Ontario. It’s just so disappointing.”
It was not clear if Apple, whose Maps application is a competitor to Google, would follow in changing the lake’s name for users in the United States or elsewhere. But last year it did change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The collapse of the trade talks earlier this month triggered new U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods, and was countered by Canadian tariffs on American goods expected to take effect Sept. 8.
It has also unleashed a war of words, with Mr. Trump reviving his longstanding comments about Canada becoming the 51st state, and calling Mr. Carney and the Canadian leadership “nasty.”
Canadians have rallied behind Mr. Carney, but are bracing for the economic impact of a protracted dispute with their neighbor and biggest trading ally.
