LUTHMANN NOTE: Trump’s order applies to U.S. federal usage, and that is enough to expose the larger fight. Canada may keep Lake Ontario on its maps. Washington has chosen Lake America for ours. I see no crisis in a president using lawful federal naming authority to remind Americans that their government answers to them. The predictable outrage says more about the critics than the order. They have spent years treating national confidence as a character defect and American restraint as a permanent obligation. A country unwilling to name its own landmarks will soon discover that other people are eager to name its priorities. Lake America gets the point exactly right. This piece is “Lake America Makes Waves,” first available on NY News Press.
On August 27, 2026, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the federal government to refer to the body of water long known as Lake Ontario as “Lake America.” The order invokes the president’s authority, existing federal naming law, and the policy established by his earlier order, “Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness.” It gives the Secretary of the Interior 30 days to coordinate with the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, implement the change in federal usage, and update the Geographic Names Information System.
Because the lake straddles the United States and Canada, Trump’s order governs American federal terminology. It cannot compel Canada or any international body to abandon the name “Lake Ontario”. That limitation matters, but it does not make the action meaningless.
The decision is about far more than a name. It presents a broader question: Who gets to define America’s national identity and the standards by which America conducts its own affairs?
Under Trump’s America First philosophy, the answer is straightforward: The American government should put American interests, American history, American sovereignty, and American taxpayers first. That does not require hostility toward Canada or any other nation. It requires America to stop apologizing for exercising its own authority.
Trump could have chosen many names. He could have designated the lake in honor of the late Dolly Parton, whose life and accomplishments represent an unmistakably American cultural legacy. Or, following a more traditional presidential naming convention, he could have chosen George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, or John F. Kennedy.
Each name would have opened a legitimate national conversation about what those individuals represented and the monumental changes they helped bring to America.
Washington represented the creation and preservation of the Republic. Lincoln preserved the Union and destroyed slavery. Reagan restored confidence in American strength and confronted an adversarial world order. Kennedy inspired a generation to reach beyond existing boundaries and challenged Americans to accomplish what seemed impossible.
Instead, “Lake America” makes a different argument. It does not elevate one individual above another. It elevates the nation itself.
That is precisely why the controversy surrounding the decision should not become another distraction from the larger debate over the direction of the United States. For nearly a decade, the America First movement has faced relentless opposition, much of it focused on personalities, symbols, and political outrage instead of the fundamental questions of sovereignty, economic strength, national security, and American independence.
A great nation should be capable of deciding how its own federal government identifies a geographic feature along its border. It should be equally capable of deciding how its resources are spent, how its alliances function, and what obligations it accepts internationally.
America should take its orders from no global health bureaucracy, economic council, political forum, or international institution that presumes to dictate American priorities. The United States completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization in January 2026. It remains a member of NATO, but membership in an alliance does not mean surrendering sovereignty or treating the American military and American taxpayers as the permanent backstop for allies that refuse to carry their share of the defense burden.
America can cooperate with the world without becoming subordinate to it.
That is the central principle behind America First. It is not isolationism. It is independence. It is the belief that America can be a generous friend, a powerful ally,y and a respected leader while still putting its own citizens first.
Perhaps that is the most important message behind changing a name.
America does not need permission to be America.
For generations, the United States remained free, prosperous, proud, and the home of the brave because Americans believed their nation had the right to determine its own destiny. The rest of the world may admire America, compete with America, criticize America, or even resent America.
But FAFO!
Even the frozen throne has shifted south. Team USA captured the 2026 Olympic men’s hockey gold medal by defeating Canada, 2-1, in overtime. The Carolina Hurricanes then won the 2026 Stanley Cup, extending the drought for Canadian NHL franchises to 33 years. With losses mounting across the international panoply, perhaps it is time for Canada to reconsider that 51st-state “offer” before the Mounties saddle their last defense-department horse without American backing.
America must remain America.
That is the essence of President Trump’s America First mentality and the principle that made the United States the exceptional nation it became.
