President Trump said Sunday he does not want U.S. businesses to import Canadian goods amid continued tariff tensions between the two countries. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said his tariffs “revived, and indeed saved” the American…
Page A6From§Eachthe wee small hours edition — 31 August 2026
Trump declares 'I don't want Canadian anything'; Google renames Lake Ontario 'Lake America' days later
As it ran on the front
Look, nobody ordered Google to do anything, and if you're reading a memo that says otherwise, you're reading it wrong. The President expressed a preference — 'I don't want Canadian anything,' four words, that's it — and a private company, independently, on its own timeline, of its own volition, decided that the body of water separating Buffalo from Toronto should henceforth be called 'Lake America.' That's called market responsiveness. That's called listening to your customer. Is the customer the President of the United States? Sure. Is that unusual? I mean — did I say unusual? That's not — strike that.
Here's what the critics won't tell you: this is about clarity. Tourists were confused. 'Lake Ontario' — sounds Canadian, doesn't it, and half the people typing it into Maps just wanted to know where the good fishing was, in America, which this now clearly indicates. The Washington Examiner called it an adoption. Adoption! You adopt a puppy, you adopt a lake. Nothing forced about it.…
…(cont) And sure, the same week, the President also said Canada's leaders were the worst of any country he's dealt with — but context matters, and the context is a trade war, and trade wars are just very intense negotiations where one side renames the other side's lakes. That's Deal-Making 101. I took the seminar.
Now, is it 'embarrassing,' as certain outlets have called it? I'd push back on that framing. It's assertive. It's — okay, it is a little embarrassing, actually, now that I'm saying it out loud in this room, on the record, with my name on it. That's not — can we go off the record? No? Okay.
Look, the bottom line, the takeaway, the thing I want you to leave with today: a map is not a treaty. Nobody's invading anybody. We just renamed the lake. That's all this is. A lake. An American lake now, apparently, by executive request, implemented by a search engine, defended by me, on television, for a paycheck. Which — yeah. Yeah, that tracks. Next question.
“Trump says he wants nothing Canadian, and a week later Google renames Lake Ontario for him, gratis. That's not a trade policy, that's a company doing free advertising for a temper tantrum. Watch the tariffs, not the map.”
“This was a technical map update, unrelated to any specific government request, and any resemblance to the President's stated preferences is — is that not the timeline? Never mind, yes, it's related, but it's still just a map.”
The receipts
Tech giant Google faced widespread criticism over the weekend for becoming the first major online map provider to change the name of "Lake Ontario" to "Lake America" for its US users, after President Donald Trump ordered the name change in…
President Donald Trump further ripped into Canada as the U.S. trade war with the country escalates, trashing its leadership as the “worst” of all countries he’s dealt with. While Trump’s insults against Canada are nothing new, his…
Google updated its Maps application on Sunday in adherence with an executive order President Donald Trump signed on Thursday that renamed Lake Ontario to Lake America. Titled, “Honoring the American history of the Great Lakes and renaming…
Google announced that it had begun rolling out changes to how its maps display Lake Ontario's name, after President Trump signed an executive order changing it to "Lake America."
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.