Trump called Apple to demand they label Lake Ontario ‘Lake America’ on maps, Doug Burgum reveals
President Donald Trump called Apple directly to get it to change Lake Ontario’s name to “Lake America” on its Maps app, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has revealed.
The president signed an executive order Thursday officially changing the name of the smallest of the Great Lakes after renewing trade hostilities with Canada, slapping 50 percent tariffs on the neighboring country’s exports and prompting Prime Minister Mark Carney to respond in kind.
Appearing on Fox Business Monday Burgum told host Cheryl Casone, standing in on Maria Bartiromo on Mornings with Maria, that Trump’s order compelled his department and related bodies like the Board of Geographic Names and the U.S. Geologic Survey to act.
“They plug that into the software and then that software cascades down so all the map providers would do that,” he said.
“I know that the president reached out to Apple directly, so I’m sure that we may be seeing that change coming up soon to Lake America.”
Google has already complied with Trump’s order and been criticized for doing so, saying in a statement Sunday: “The U.S. Geographic Names Information System has formally changed the name for ‘Lake Ontario’ to ‘Lake America’ in the United States.
“Since we update Google Maps to reflect name changes in official government sources, which is GNIS for the U.S., people using Maps in the U.S. will see ‘Lake America,’ those in Canada will continue to see ‘Lake Ontario,’ and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names.
“These updates follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country, and are starting to roll out now.”
The president last year changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” after falling out with the U.S.’s neighbor to the south and had the Associated Press barred from White House media briefings after it refused to accept the new designation – a ban the news agency ultimately overcame in court.
Trump’s latest rebranding exercise has been met with mockery, with Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who spent much of last week attacking the president, installing a massive billboard in Grimsby on the lake’s Canadian shore declaring that the feature remains: “Lake Ontario. Now and Always.”
“I don’t see the purpose,” Ford said of Trump’s actions on ABC News’s This Week Sunday. “It was something out of Saturday Night Live when he signed documents saying ‘change it to Lake America.’ No one is going to call it Lake America.”
Also mocking the president was Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, who said: “You know when a rock band is really over the hill and you see them, like, in a casino playing some song from, like, 50 years ago? I think that’s the part of Donald Trump’s presidency we’re at now.
“Like he thought they had a real hit, a real golden oldie, with the Gulf of Mexico. And he’s trying to bring back that, and he’s trying to play the hits for his base. But I think everybody here thinks it’s a little sad and it’s not his best work.”
Historian Robert Bothwell was even more scathing. “The greatest country on earth takes this moron seriously?” he asked, incredulously.
Canadian band Blue Rodeo meanwhile encouraged its audience to chant the name of the lake at a gig in Toronto over the weekend as they played their hit song “Hasn’t Hit Me Yet,” which directly references it.
“I would just like you to sing tonight with full authority and ownership,” frontman Greg Keelor told the crowd. “And we’ll sing this one for the shining waters that have been there long before any of us were ever here.”
After they had obliged with gusto, band member Jim Cuddy responded: “That was chilling, folks. We are who we are, right?”
Trump himself spoke to Fox Sunday and griped that, in his opinion, Canada behaves in an entitled manner towards the U.S. and has no right to expect favorable trading terms.
“They think they’re a state, but they’re not a state,” he told host Trey Gowdy. “Why should we be subsidizing Canada?”
