President Trump signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America” amid an ongoing trade war between the US and Canada. <\/span>Andrew Harnik\/Getty<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n President Donald Trump<\/span> on Thursday followed through on a threat to rename Lake Ontario to \u201cLake America,\u201d issuing an executive order to \u201cMake the Great Lakes Even Greater\u201d amid a collapsed trade deal<\/a> with Canada, further escalating tensions between the two former allies.<\/p>\n The lake in question has been known as Lake Ontario since the 1600s. Trump contends that it should be renamed because America spends more money on it than Canada does.<\/p>\n \u201cThe United\u00a0States is the greatest protector of the Great Lakes, including the body of water currently known as Lake Ontario,\u201d Thursday\u2019s executive order reads. \u201cThe United States Coast Guard supplies 9 of the 11 ice breaking vessels on the Great Lakes, securing commercial shipping lanes free of charge. \u00a0The United States has\u00a0invested nearly $4 billion in protecting the Great Lakes freshwater ecosystem in the last decade, while Canada has invested far less in similar initiatives over the same period.\u201d<\/p>\n My colleague Alex Nguyen covered Canada\u2019s response<\/a> to the escalating trade war\u2014a large support package for Canadian workers and firms\u2014on Tuesday:<\/p>\n While the plan aims more at support for businesses than direct funds for individual Canadians, it is a meaningful step that far exceeds any the Trump administration has taken or tried to take, with the White House largely\u00a0ignoring the foreseeable harm<\/a>\u00a0of its tariffs on American workers and consumers\u2026 Nearly every state has experienced blue-collar job losses as a result of the tariff agenda, even as the policies deliver few apparent results in improving US manufacturing or\u00a0lowering the trade deficit<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The \u201cLake America\u201d decision is a return to a Trumpian theme: governance as branding exercise<\/a>. That includes renaming the Gulf of Mexico the \u201cGulf of America,\u201d the Defense Department as \u201cDepartment of War,\u201d the Kennedy Center as \u201cTrump-Kennedy Center,\u201d and (unofficially) ICE as NICE.<\/a><\/p>\n\n
\n\t<\/p>\n
Get your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily<\/em>.<\/a><\/div>\n