'We're taking it very personally': Republican mayor from Lake Ontario city rejects Trump's 'Lake America'

The mayor of a New York State city on the shore of Lake Ontario has said his community is taking the lake’s renaming “very personally” and will not be using the new “Lake America” name.

Robert Corradino is a Republican and has been mayor of Oswego, in the Republican stronghold of Oswego County, since January 2024.

Despite the area’s political allegiance, he says his community is “trying to understand why a name that has endured for centuries would suddenly be changed” when there is “no practical, historical, or cultural need to change it.”

In an interview with National Post, Corradino said: “We can disagree with the current administration’s take about renaming Lake Ontario and still support some of its other initiatives. But we’re taking the renaming of the lake very personally in Oswego.”

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to “Lake America” in U.S. government records and maps on Aug. 27.

The change has since been adopted by both Google and Apple Maps for users in the U.S., but Corradino has said that Oswego does not support the renaming, and won’t be altering any signage, tourism materials or official communications to reflect the new name.

“The lake provides so much for our community as well as our identity,” Corradino said, citing the economic boost from charter boats and cruise ships as well as “beautiful sunsets.”

“Lake Ontario is in the DNA of Osweganians,” he said, adding, “Everything that we are emanates from the lake.”

The mayor said that the souring relationship between Canada and the U.S., which re-escalated following the breakdown of trade negotiations last month, has hit the tourism industry in Oswego, located just an hour from the border.

“Our tourism from Canada is down substantially. We have stores, we have museums that depend on tourism, and Canadians are a big part of our tourism business,” he said.

It’s a trend that has rippled across the U.S., with recent data from Statistics Canada revealing that Canadian travel to the United States dropped by 10.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025.

Speaking about the direction he’d like to see Canada-U.S. relations take, Corradino added: “I would hope that our two countries, because of our long-standing relationship, could sit down in a conference room and discuss issues calmly and professionally, and work these differences out without changing the name of the lake.”

His comments come after Prime Minister Mark Carney rebuffed U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s recent claim that Canada pulled out of trade talks with the U.S. due to political reasons.

Meanwhile, other politicians in the U.S. have also condemned Trump’s executive order , including former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who simply wrote, “It’s Lake Ontario,” in a post on X, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said , “The American people don’t want to rename Lake Ontario Lake America.”

It’s Lake Ontario.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) August 27, 2026

On the Canadian side, Carney responded to Trump’s actions shortly after the executive order was signed, explaining on social media that “the name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, means ‘the lake is beautiful, the lake is big’.”

He added that the name is more than 400 years old and predates both Canadian Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms,” he wrote. “Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre echoed Carney’s sentiment in his own post on X , adding that the lake is not Trump’s “to rename on a whim.”

On Saturday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled a new Lake Ontario sign in Winona, Ont., to remind Trump “it’s Lake Ontario, now and forever.”

It’s Lake Ontario, now and always. pic.twitter.com/KNahtPAMeJ

— Doug Ford (@fordnation) August 29, 2026

In a video posted on X, the Ontario premier said, “You may have heard that President Trump is trying to rename this lake all because he doesn’t like Ontario and Canada standing up for ourselves.”

Ford continued: “Long before President Trump, this lake was called Lake Ontario. And long after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario. But just in case President Trump or anyone else forgets, we have set up a sign to remind them, it’s Lake Ontario now and forever.”

Ford’s comments on the lake’s longstanding name were echoed in a press release issued by Corradino on Tuesday, in which he was quoted as saying: “Lake Ontario has carried its name for hundreds of years. It is a name rooted in history, geography, and the shared identity of the communities that surround it…The name Lake Ontario comes from a Huron Indigenous people’s word that means lake of shining waters. The province of Ontario took its name from the lake in 1867, over two hundred years after the name first appeared on the maps of European explorers.”

He added: “The city of Oswego will continue using the name that reflects our history and honors the generations who have lived, worked, and built their lives along its shores.”

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