U.S. President Donald Trump has asked Apple to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” on its maps app, his administration’s interior chief said Monday, days after signing an executive order over the body of water now in the spotlight amid his escalating trade war with Canada.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told Fox’s “Mornings with Maria” program that Trump “reached out to Apple directly.” He said he was confident the “Lake America” name could be seen on its platform soon.
Apple did not immediately comment in response. Only the Lake Ontario name appeared on its platform as of Monday afternoon.
Just over the weekend, competitor Google Maps rolled out the new “Lake America” name for U.S. users looking at the body of water that sits between the state of New York and Canada’s Ontario province. The company cited the recent order by Trump, and its already-established practice of using names assigned by the U.S. Geographic Names Information System, also known as GNIS.
“People using Maps in the U.S. will see ‘Lake America,’ those in Canada will continue to see ‘Lake Ontario,’ and those outside of the U.S. and Canada will see both names,” Google said in a brief statement on Saturday, reiterating that such updates “follow our long-standing policy for bodies of water with names that vary from country to country.”
Trump declared the new “Lake America” name last week — marking one of the latest provocations during his trade war with Canada that is now hiking tariffs on both sides of the border. His executive order on Friday directed the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service.
The president cannot force Canada to follow along, however. And America’s northern neighbors quickly panned the idea. The leader of the Seneca Nation in upstate New York also said the move violates a more than 225-year-old treaty and shows a “blatant disrespect” for the Indigenous people who gave Lake Ontario its name in the first place.
What you’re describing is generally referred to as localization. Executive orders are not country wide, and no one outside of the executive branch is required to follow them. Because of that, they are not able to make them nationally recognized, as that would require an act of congress. Even then, it will not ever be internationally recognized since that would require the relevant parties to agree on the change.
Organizations have varied approaches to localization. For example, OSM’s guidelines center around either official or common names for map features. Trump’s names are not official outside of the executive branch, and are not commonly used by anyone. This means the original names have remained the primary name tag, even inside the US.
MapQuest, while I don’t know their guidelines, is also on the side of not changing names of international festures based on an executive order.
This isn’t just a localization thing. The problem, at the root, is that either Google’s localization guidelines are loose enough to force them to bend the knee for fascists, or, more likely, Google wants to continue to glaze up Trump, and is therefore more than happy to bend the knee. Either way, the result is the same.