Google redesignated Lake Ontario as “Lake America” on maps seen by US customers Sunday after President Donald Trump introduced he was renaming the physique of water, with a Canadian official slamming the cross-border tensions as “completely backwards.”
Individuals in Canada will nonetheless see Lake Ontario, the Indigenous-rooted title used for the lake because the seventeenth century, on their gadgets and computer systems, the US-based tech large mentioned.
The shock nomenclatural spat erupted as the most recent aspect of Trump’s “America First” narrative, with longtime allies america and Canada ramping up a commerce warfare that has seen Washington and Ottawa slap tit-for-tat tariffs on one another.
Apple’s Maps app that comes put in on all iPhones makes no point out of “Lake America” on its maps as of Sunday morning.
Google mentioned it made its change according to the US Geographic Names Data System (GNIS), the official federal database for geographic names.
“Since we replace Google Maps to replicate title adjustments in official authorities sources, which is GNIS for the US, individuals utilizing Maps within the US will see ‘Lake America,’ these in Canada will proceed to see ‘Lake Ontario,’ and people exterior of the US and Canada will see each names,” Google mentioned on its weblog.
The change mirrors Trump’s unilateral altering of the title of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in January 2025 — a transfer Mexico has additionally rejected.
Ontario is the smallest by floor space of the 5 Nice Lakes, which straddle the Canada-US border between Ontario province and the US state of New York.
The province’s premier, Doug Ford, provided contemporary criticism Sunday of the commerce dispute and Trump’s lake title change.
“It is completely backwards. It was like one thing out of (US comedy TV present) ‘Saturday Night time Dwell’ when he signed a doc saying — modified to ‘Lake America.’ Nobody’s going to name it Lake of America,” Ford instructed ABC discuss present “This Week.”
“It is simply so disappointing.”
Ford additionally warned that whereas a commerce warfare would hurt each nations, “it would be positively devastating on the US” provided that Canada has been by far the biggest purchaser of US automobiles. Ought to these buys dry up, US auto factories could be hit laborious.
“A tariff on Canada is nothing greater than a tax on American individuals,” he mentioned. “It is most likely the worst transfer you possibly can ever do.”
Canada and the US have a deeply interconnected auto manufacturing sector, and a sizeable portion of elements for US automobiles are made in Canada.
Trump himself waded in Sunday to say People “wish to make our personal vehicles.”
“Canada has been ripping us off for years — NO LONGER!” Trump posted on his Fact Social platform.
(Aside from the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
