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.
Geographic Names Information System has formally changed the name for ‘Lake Ontario’ to ‘Lake America’ in the United States. 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.
I think that’s the part of Donald Trump’s presidency we’re at now. 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.
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. 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.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
