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…
Page A3From§Eachthe sunrise edition — 31 August 2026
Trump says he wants nothing Canadian; Google renames Lake Ontario 'Lake America' by his executive order.
As it ran on the front
Let's be clear about what happened here, because this reporter has seen the coverage and frankly some of it is overwrought. The President has said, in his own words, that he doesn't want anything Canadian. That's a trade position. That's a — it's a preference, stated plainly, and preferences are allowed, that's the whole idea of an executive.
Google Maps has updated its labeling for Lake Ontario in the United States to reflect 'Lake America,' consistent with the executive order. This is a labeling change. It is not a territorial claim, it is not — well, it is a body of water that borders another sovereign country being relabeled by unilateral American order, but the water itself hasn't moved, the treaty hasn't changed, nothing has actually — okay, something has changed, the name on the map has changed, I'll give you that one.…
…(cont) Is this a big deal? This reporter would argue no. Names change. Cities get renamed. Airports get renamed. This is a lake, getting renamed, by a president, because he does not want anything with the word 'Canadian' attached to it, and the lake happens to be the kind of thing you can rename without asking the people who live on the other side of it, because it's — actually, that part might be the issue. That part where nobody on the Canadian side gets a say in what their own shared lake is called on an American company's map. I hadn't thought about it that way until just now, saying it out loud.
Look, the administration's position is that this is a matter of national pride, and national pride doesn't require congressional approval, a treaty amendment, or a conversation with the country that shares the lake. That's the position. This reporter is required to relay it, and having relayed it, this reporter would like the record to reflect that relaying a position is not the same as finding it makes sense.
“They can't unbuild the tariffs so they renamed a lake — it's cheaper than a trade policy and it fits on a map. Nobody on the Canadian side of that lake got a vote on the new name.”
The receipts
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…
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…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.