LANSING, Mich. — President Donald Trump floated the idea of changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in a social media post Tuesday amid an intensifying feud with Canada.

The Republican president posted about the possibility of the name switch at about 7 a.m. Last year, he issued an order to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

"The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer," Trump wrote on the platform Truth Social.

Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes. It is the only one of the five that doesn't surround Michigan, which is known as the Great Lakes State.

A day before his post, Trump said U.S. tariffs on all cars and trucks, automotive parts and steel would be increased to 50% starting Jan. 1, 2027, adding that Canada "will be treated like a state no longer."

The two countries failed to reach a trade deal on Friday, with each side blaming the other as Canada readied tariffs on some U.S. goods in retaliation for 50% levies ordered by Trump on a series of other Canadian goods.

Then, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, criticized Trump on Monday, calling him a "bully" and a "dictator."

"I am not going to take any advice off a guy that's the king of bankruptcies," Ford said. "He's actually tariffing his own people, taxing his own people."

Curtis Hertel Jr., chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, was critical of Trump's idea of changing the lake name.

"Donald Trump has been America first in name only his entire presidency. He promised lower prices, higher wages, and no foreign wars ... all of that is bull s---," Hertel said. "Renaming the fourth best Great Lake isn't going to change that."

Hertel clarified that he ranked Lake Ontario above Lake Erie.

_____

(Detroit News staff writers Luke Ramseth and Grant Schwab contributed to this story.)

©2026 www.detroitnews.com. Visit at detroitnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.