Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed back Thursday after President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America.”
Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee who lost the election to Trump, issued a brief response to the president’s move on social media.
“It’s Lake Ontario,” Clinton wrote in a post on X.
Comments on Clinton’s post appeared to be turned off as of Friday morning.
Trump signed the executive order Thursday directing Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to update the lake’s name in the Geographic Names Information System, according to Breitbart News.
The move comes as tensions between the US and Canada have intensified following the failure of the two countries to finalize a trade agreement.
When Trump was asked whether the name change was intended to send a message to Canada, the president said there was “no message” behind the decision. However, Trump went on to accuse Canada of taking advantage of the US economically.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer blamed Canadian officials for the collapse of the latest trade negotiations, saying Canada declined to finalize an agreement under terms that had previously been negotiated.
“Canada declined to finalize the trade deal under the terms agreed earlier this week,” Greer said.
Greer said the US had offered Canada favorable treatment among major exporters to the American market but claimed Canadian officials introduced new demands and reversed previous commitments.
“This is a missed opportunity for Canada to partner with the U.S.,” Greer said.
Trump also addressed the Lake Ontario name change in a video in which he displayed a map showing the lake along the US-Canada border.
The president pointed to Lake Ontario and said the administration was “gonna make a little change” before crossing out its existing name and writing “Lake America” on the map.
“And all it takes is a good pen and some intelligence,” Trump said.
Trump then connected the decision to his previous renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
“So now we have a lake, and now we have a gulf because we have the Gulf of America and now we have Lake America without the ‘of,’” Trump said. “Thank you very much, everybody.”
The Lake America executive order marks another geographic renaming effort by Trump and comes against the backdrop of increasingly strained trade relations between Washington and Ottawa, per Breitbart News.
Clinton’s terse response made clear that she was not embracing the administration’s new designation, instead continuing to refer to the body of water by its longstanding name.
