(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday renaming Lake Ontario, the smallest of the Great Lakes by surface area, to Lake America.
With Canada as Illinois’ top international trade partner, the largely symbolic renaming is part of a wider economic story.
Trump explained his reasoning for the renaming Thursday.
“We're going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario effective immediately to Lake America. We lose on average over the last 15 years $60 billion a year carrying Canada. So we just can't do it anymore,” Trump said.
According to the Canadian government, Illinois exports roughly $17.5 billion in goods to Canada annually, and another $4.2 billion in services, such as financial, business and travel.
The U.S. imposed 50% tariffs on about $20 billion in Canadian goods last week after trade negotiations between the two countries broke down.
“We're going to be doing tariffs on their cars that are coming in at a substantial level because we want to make the cars here,” Trump said. “Likewise many other products. So the Lake change, Lake of America, was something I've been thinking about for a long time.”
On Tuesday, Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced Canada would match the U.S. duties "dollar for dollar, rate for rate," with counter-tariffs of 15%, 25% and 50% on U.S. goods taking effect Sept. 8.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a conservative, threatened Monday to cut the province's electricity exports to the U.S.
As of 2025, the province primarily supplied electricity to Michigan, New York and Minnesota.
Both Minnesota and Michigan are primarily on the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, power grid which also covers most of Illinois aside from Chicagoland and surrounding counties.
On a more lighthearted side of the renaming, politicians poked fun at the renaming of the Great Lake, which isn’t named for the Canadian province, rather the province is named after the lake.
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