Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America amid Canada trade war – US politics live | US politics– www.theguardian.com

Donald Trump summoned the press pool to the Oval Office to witness him signing an executive order that directs the Department of the Interior to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America”.

This comes after trade talks between Canada collapsed over the weekend and led to a fray of tariffs between Washington and Ottawa.

Trump claimed the name change was something “I’ve been thinking about for a long time”.

“Canada treats us very badly,” the president said. “People oftentimes they’ll ask me who’s the worst to deal with on trade, and I said that’s easy. Canada, they are the worst, and they feel entitled, and just we can’t have that.”

A 50% tariff on several Canadian imports kicked in on Saturday, with Trump threatening another round of 50% duties on Canadian steel, trucks, cars and auto parts to take effect in the new year. Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, hit back with 25-50% tariffs on hundreds of US goods.

This, of course, is not the first time the president has made renaming a body of water a priority. At the beginning of his second term in office he issued an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”.

Trump appeared to joke that there could be more to come: “We have a Gulf and we have a Lake – now all we need is an ocean. Maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them both.”