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.
I get why you are trying to say. The other side of the coin is that tech companies are providing public space where lots of politics happen. Furthermore they are eager to be in good relations with any government so they aren’t impartial subjects. Notable examples: invaguration donations, Oracle and TikTok forced sale. They never were a neutral platform, before 2024 USA elections it was rightwing screeching about their political slant. Now its reversed.
Exactly, they are going whichever way the wind blows, whatever looks like profit. They’re not pro-fascism, they’re not pro-liberalism, they’re not even pro-capitalism if it means competition hurts their bottom line. AI companies are currently openly trying to get the US to own a stake in their companies, because that means it’s in the US’ interest to write laws that favor them, and to bail them out later when the bubble pops. And though that looks to the layperson like the state owning the means of production, they are also not pro-communism. They are pro-profit, and everything else is left undefined.