Trump Mulls Renaming Atlantic, Pacific As ‘American Ocean’  

U.S President Donald Trump has suggested that the Atlantic and Pacific oceans could be renamed the “American Ocean,” as trade tensions between the United States and Canada continue to escalate.

Trump made the remarks on Thursday at the Oval Office while signing an executive order renaming Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America’.

“We have a Gulf, and we have a lake—now all we need is an ocean,” Mr Trump told reporters at the Oval Office. “Maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific.”

He added, “Maybe we’ll change them both.”

The executive order changes the name of Lake Ontario, the smallest of North America’s five Great Lakes by surface area, which was named after the Canadian province of Ontario.

Trump said the change would take immediate effect and directed U.S. federal agencies to reflect the new name in official maps, documents and databases.

However, the move may have no effect in Canada, as the lake is shared by both countries and lies along their border.

Trump also took aim at Canada over the ongoing trade dispute, describing the country as the United States’ “worst” trade partner.

“They feel entitled, and we can’t have that,” he said.

The development comes after Trump’s earlier decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, a move that was rejected by the Mexican government.

Reacting to the renaming of Lake Ontario, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston criticised the move in a post on social media.

“We’re into some real foolishness now. It’s Lake Ontario, buddy,” he said.

Trump’s comments came as the trade dispute between Washington and Ottawa deepened.

The Canadian government announced on Tuesday that it would impose tariffs of between 15 per cent and 50 per cent on about 700 U.S. products from September 8, in response to measures previously introduced by the Trump administration against Canadian goods.

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has imposed tariffs on several key Canadian imports, prompting retaliatory measures from Ottawa and fuelling an increasingly tense trade relationship between the two neighbours.

The United States remains Canada’s largest trading partner, while Canada is Washington’s second-largest trading partner after Mexico.

However, tensions between both countries intensified further last week after trade negotiations failed to produce an agreement.