Mélanie Joly, Canada’s minister of industry, rebuffed President Trump’s warning to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America” on Tuesday, saying Canadians will “always call it Lake Ontario,” The Hill reports.
“We’re proud of our Great Lakes,” Joly told reporters during a Tuesday press conference. “We’ve navigated the St. Lawrence River, the Great Lakes, for thousands of years, and it was part of a foundation of our country. And we’ll just stand up for what we have.”
Met with applause, Joly added that while “all these shenanigans are happening” — referring to the president’s ongoing trade war with Canada — “we’ll just be smart and we’ll be strategic and we’ll fight back.”
Trump’s warning resembles his 2025 executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” — a move he described at the time as retaliation against the U.S.’s southern neighbor for “allowing millions of people to pour into our country.”
On Instagram, the official White House account shared a photo of a U.S. map appearing as though it was built using Legos. Above the Great Lakes region appears a rectangle containing the words “Lake America,” while the southern gulf has a similar sign that reads “Gulf of America.”
The renewed trade war between Washington and Ottawa began after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney removed negotiators from trade talks with the U.S. over the weekend, causing a new set of tariffs on several Canadian goods to go into effect.
Carney then announced that, starting Sept. 8, Ottawa would enact retaliatory tariffs in response to the U.S.’s 50 percent tariffs. He told reporters that it would “match Washington’s new tariffs dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families and businesses.”
François-Philippe Champagne, Canada’s minister of finance, said Tuesday that Canada will impose 15 percent, 25 percent and 50 percent tariffs on $27.6 billion of U.S. goods. Canada is doubling its tariffs on U.S. steel and aluminum to 50 percent — exactly matching the U.S.’s rate.
“For each product, our tariff will match the American tariff on the same type of Canadian good,” Champagne said.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford preceded Joly in clapping back at Trump’s warning, telling CNN on Tuesday that the threats were a “lot of rhetoric.”
“We’re strong believers in being a sovereign country, and when President Trump wants to attack our sovereignty and attack our businesses and people in Ontario, I can’t roll over,” he told the network’s Wolf Blitzer. “My job is to protect Ontario and Canada, and ironically, protecting the American people.”
The Ontario premier called on both sides of the fight to bring down the temperature, telling Blitzer that “things got a little heated” between him and Trump.
“Let’s negotiate a fair deal because it’s hurting the U.S. It’s hurting Canada, and we just want to make sure that we have a fair deal,” Ford said.
