Donald Trump wants the U.S. government to call Lake Ontario “Lake America.”

Politicians on both sides of the border aren’t exactly embracing the new name.

The U.S. president signed an executive order Thursday directing federal agencies to use “Lake America” when referring to Lake Ontario.

The order does not change what Canada calls the lake or require Canadians, international organizations or private companies to adopt the name. Instead, it changes how the body of water is identified by the U.S. federal government.

Trump first floated the idea earlier this week amid another flare-up in Canada-U.S. tensions, with trade, tariffs and his increasingly pointed exchanges with Canadian politicians once again dominating the relationship.

And it didn’t take long for politicians to weigh in.

Former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton kept her response remarkably simple.

“It’s Lake Ontario,” she wrote on X.

Carney comes armed with a history lesson

Prime Minister Mark Carney, meanwhile, came armed with a history lesson.

Carney pointed to the origins of the lake’s name, saying it comes from the Wendat word On:tar’io, which he said means “the lake is beautiful, the lake is big.”

“The name is more than 400-years-old, predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America,” Carney wrote.

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He also took aim at the broader direction of Trump’s America.

“We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms.”

But Canadians, he added, know “that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario — then, now and always.”

Carney’s response comes as relations between Ottawa and Washington remain strained over trade and tariffs, with political rhetoric between the two countries becoming increasingly personal in recent days.

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Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles went with a response that will probably sound familiar to plenty of Torontonians.

Anyone still refusing to call the home of the Blue Jays the Rogers Centre more than two decades after the name changed probably understands the point.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew took a different approach, comparing Trump’s move to a band well past its prime.

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston was even more concise.

The jokes didn’t start Thursday.

Earlier this week, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow invoked Dolly Parton while responding to Trump, while Coun. Brad Bradford suggested Canada could simply rename New York the “Province of New York.”

Trump’s Lake Ontario comments have also become tangled up in his increasingly personal feud with Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who recently told the president to “kiss my ass” and later called him a “loser.”

Sanders, Jeffries and Schumer criticize ‘Lake America’ from the U.S.

Trump was getting it from the American side of the border too.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders argued Americans have more pressing things to worry about than the name of a lake.

He went on to point to health care, child care, housing, education and nutrition assistance as issues he believes the administration should be focused on instead.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries struck a similar tone.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called the move “sad and pathetic,” arguing Trump should instead be focused on problems facing American voters.

Lake Michigan, Buffalo and the Expos get in on the joke

The reactions weren’t limited to politicians.

A Lake Michigan account threw its support behind its Great Lakes neighbour with a simple:

Buffalo television personality Kevin O’Neill offered some cross-border reassurance.

The Montreal Expos account took things one step further.

It joked that Youppi! had signed an executive order of his own renaming the Washington Nationals the “Montreal Expos,” effective immediately.

If the reaction Thursday was any indication, “Lake America” may have an easier time catching on in Washington than it does north of the border.