Make no mistake, Trump's 'Lake America' nonsense is deadly serious

# Make no mistake, Trump's 'Lake America' nonsense is deadly serious

By [Andrew Phillips](https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/users/profile/Andrew%20Phillips)Staff Columnist, Toronto Star

Andrew Phillips is a Toronto-based staff columnist for the Star’s Opinion page. Reach him via email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

[Donald Trump](https://www.thestar.com/news/donald-trump/) sat in the Oval Office at the White House on Thursday and used his signature Sharpie to sign an [executive order](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/08/honoring-the-american-history-of-the-great-lakes-and-renaming-lake-ontario-as-lake-america/) renaming Lake Ontario as [“Lake America.”](https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/donald-trump-signs-order-renaming-lake-ontario-as-lake-america/article_0cd06214-bbb4-454e-94c5-b084b8b7d8ff.html)

I expect there’ll be a flood of commentary mocking this as absurd, ridiculous, laughable. Why not “Lake Melania” or “Lake Natalie,” if you want to get into the [latest rumours](https://www.thestar.com/entertainment/opinion/a-trump-aide-named-natalie-is-americas-real-first-lady-melania-watch-out/article_a4114942-443d-44fe-81b1-dad3d08b2760.html) about Trump’s female companionship.

Or comments to the effect that this proves Trump has gone completely off the rails, that he’s a wingnut, an insane person.

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Or, finally, that it’s meaningless, that Trump’s Sharpie squiggle has no effect on Canada or the rest of the world. That big, beautiful body of water has been [Lake Ontario forever](https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/who-gets-to-name-a-lake-what-to-know-about-trumps-renaming-of-lake-ontario/article_c5ba54f0-2a69-5eff-b9dc-ee4db18bb78a.html) (indeed, long before Europeans showed up) and always will be.

The truth is all of the above — but much more. Because a U.S. president doing such a thing can’t be shrugged off as silly, or nutty or pointless.

It’s deadly serious, just as his jibes about the “51st state” were no joke. It took us a while to come to grips with that, precisely because it seemed so absurd. But eventually we had to realize that Trump meant exactly what he said: he thinks Canada should be part of the United States and his policies are aimed at accomplishing just that.

Likewise with “Lake America.” Of course it will have no substantial effect in the real world. But as he signed the executive order Trump remarked he was doing it because Canada is “the worst” to deal with on trade. “They feel entitled and we can’t have that,” he said.

So Canada’s sin this week is being uppity. The Carney government told Trump’s team to take their trade deal and shove it, thereby becoming the first country to draw a line on what it would accept from the president.

This was noticed around the world. [Europeans went on social media](https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canadas-resistance-to-trumps-trade-demands-offers-europe-a-blueprint-will-the-eu-take-it-9.7320845) to proclaim that Carney was showing the European Union that “with Trump, only firmness pays off.” The chief White House correspondent of the New York Times, Peter Baker, [wrote this week](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/us/politics/trump-polls-tariffs-carney.html) that Carney’s refusal to buckle “has flipped the narrative of the president’s second term” — namely that Trump cannot be resisted, that he is an unstoppable force.

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As a result, Baker continued, “the age of capitulation that defined Mr. Trump’s return to office may be starting to fade.” World leaders and domestic institutions are starting to push back against Trump, and Canada is leading the pack.

That cannot be permitted. You can haggle over details of trade policies, percentages of tariffs and which particular kind of steel should be on a list of sanctioned products.

But defying The Man? Showing that it’s possible to say no and still be left standing? That cannot be allowed. Others might take the point that resistance is possible, and then the whole edifice would crumble.

Also in the New York Times this week, [columnist Bret Stephens](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/opinion/trump-canada-trade-war-dolly-parton.html) notes that Trump is putting the United States in the position that Niccolò Machiavelli warned a prince should always avoid: being hated, but not feared.

That’s what Carney was doing to Trump — showing that you don’t have to fear him. If that idea gets around, it will be contagious.

So “Lake America” is another slap at the very idea of Canada. [I’ve long thought](https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/i-may-have-figured-out-trumps-sudden-obsession-with-canada/article_dccd3b5c-e253-11ef-b887-6b295011fab9.html) that Trump’s problem with Canada is Canada. It’s not that our leaders are “nasty” on trade or we have some special deal he thinks we don’t deserve. It’s that this country exists as a separate entity from the United States.

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Trump simply doesn’t get that. He looks at a map and sees, as he has put it, the 49th parallel drawn “artificially” across the continent. What’s the point? Wouldn’t it be neater, or “greater,” if the U.S.A. stretched all the way to the North Pole? And wouldn’t it be fabulous if he was the president to get that done?

Our underlying sin, then, is something we can’t fix in any trade negotiation, other than by submitting to Trump’s will as a step toward eventual absorption into the United States. Renaming Lake Ontario is another reminder of that goal.

In that sense, the very absurdity of “Lake America” is the point. It’s a declaration that he can do with us whatever pops into his head.

We can certainly laugh at it, but don’t think for a moment it isn’t serious.

Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. [More details](https://www.thestar.com/site/static-pages/glossary.html)

Andrew Phillips is a Toronto-based staff columnist for the Star’s Opinion page. Reach him via email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])