On Thursday, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order purporting to change the name of Lake Ontario, which sits between the US and Canada, to Lake America.
This change is reminiscent of his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on the first day of his second term.
Why the change? According to the executive order,
[I]t is the policy of my Administration to recognize the extraordinary contributions of the American people and the rich heritage of our history by naming great natural landmarks for our shared achievements. The United States is the greatest protector of the Great Lakes, including the body of water currently known as Lake Ontario. Without the security and investment provided by the United States, this freshwater system would not be open for shipping, recreation, and responsible use to the same extent as it is today. The United States Coast Guard supplies 9 of the 11 ice breaking vessels on the Great Lakes, securing commercial shipping lanes free of charge. The United States has invested nearly $4 billion in protecting the Great Lakes freshwater ecosystem in the last decade, while Canada has invested far less in similar initiatives over the same period.
But why this lake? Why this name? Why now? Ostensibly, Trump renamed the lake because of its importance to America and because America takes care of it. In reality, it is a combination of spite toward Canada and low-brow patriotism.
On Tuesday, after trade "talks" between the US and Canada broke down, a trade war began. Canada announced "retaliatory tariffs as high as 50% on hundreds of United States products, including some steel and aluminum goods, furniture and clothing." The new tariffs are set to take effect on September 8, and the people of each country will suffer from the trade war, "In total, the latest American tariffs cover about 5% of the goods the US imported from Canada last year, while Canada’s tariffs cover about 6% of the goods the US exported to Canada, according to US trade data."
For some time, Trump has been fixated on Canada and how unfair it is to the United States.
Unsurprisingly, most of what he says about Canada is grossly exaggerated or simply made up. He has lied about Canada not having a military, wanting to be a US state, having a 10% unemployment rate, and imposing radical tariffs on US goods.
Canada does not unfairly take $60 billion from the US each year. That is not how trade works. A trade deficit between two nations simply means nation A imports more goods/services from nation B than nation B imports from nation A. There is nothing inherently wrong or unfair about this.
Trump has been obsessed with trade deficits for years. Unsurprisingly, he does not seem to understand trade deficits or what they mean. Trump is the king of the Dunning-Kruger effect, always believing (and presenting) himself to be a genius and savant (far above his actual abilities) in whatever area of expertise is relevant at the moment. This has led him to adopt all sorts of harmful and illegal tariffs.
So how did we get to this trade war between Canada and the US? The New York Times has one of the most complete pictures of what happened.
A month of intense talks to stave off new U.S. tariffs on Canada and soften the ones previously imposed by the Trump administration had been yielding steady progress. But they collapsed suddenly, setting in motion an all-out trade war between the two nations.
The sticking points were many. In the last few hours, negotiators clashed over Canadian rules promoting French-language movies and shows online, as well as the Trump administration’s demands to dictate Canada’s steel tariffs on other countries. Canada, in turn, insisted on more generous treatment for its autos, electric vehicles and products made with metal — and ultimately backed away from its offer to cooperate on the Keystone XL pipeline that President Trump has long desired, people familiar with the negotiations said.
The US allegedly attempting to dictate how Canada traded with and imposed tariffs on other countries seems to be one of the biggest issues cited in various news stories and seems to have sat poorly with Canadian officials.
Luckily, Trump took it all in stride,
On Monday, after the negotiations collapsed, Mr. Trump vowed to increase tariffs on all cars, trucks, car parts and steel from Canada to 50 percent, starting on Jan. 1. He called Canadian officials “clowns” from “among the worst Nations in the World to deal with.”
“WE DON’T NEED CANADA, THEY NEED US!” he wrote.
Mr. Carney fired back: “The attitude, at the negotiation table, that Canada is a subsidiary of the United States,” he said, “that’s not something we’re going to accept.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Carney announced Canada’s retaliation tariffs against the United States.
And so, we now have Lake America (as well as a severely damaged bond between two formerly close nations that will surely make most Canadians and Americans poorer).
The name change is embarrassing for a variety of reasons that are obvious to most of us who are not sworn to the cult of Trump. First, it shows Trump's tendency toward reflexively acting out of juvenile spite. Canada did not do what he wanted on a trade matter; therefore, he must quickly move to change the name of a lake that borders both countries and shares a name with the Canadian province housing Canada's capital and government. That Lake Ontario derives its name not from Canada but from the name used by local indigenous peoples for hundreds or thousands of years seems irrelevant (or unknown) to Trump.
Second, there are so many more important matters in the country and world for Trump to attend to. He was elected largely on the promise of making homes and goods more affordable for Americans. He has failed miserably to do accomplish this goal and has even exacerbated things with idiotic and arbitrary tariffs as well as foolishly starting an illegal and open-ended war that has dramatically increased the price of oil (and essentially everything else). Instead of spending his time properly addressing these issues, he is picking a fight with our closest neighbor, throwing a cartographical tantrum and making the affordability issue worse for Americans.
Third, the name is just plainly unimaginative and makes little sense. Apparently, he could come up with nothing better than the shorthand name of our country. Lake Ontario is one of the five great lakes. Why name this one after the entire country? It sounds like something a toddler would do. Clearly, he intended nothing more than for the name change to function as him sticking his tongue out at Canada's leaders and for the name to inspire a rush of reflexive patriotic support in his favor from brain-dead Americans who lack the ability to think critically.
We shall see how much support he gets once Canada's tariffs go into effect and Americans begin to feel the economic pain. Hopefully, things do not escalate further.