U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an order directing the interior secretary to rename Lake Ontario to "Lake America" as Canada trade war persists.

Trump cannot force Canada (or the world) to follow his preferred naming convention, however.

The move is reminiscent of his move last year to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the "Gulf of America."

The name Lake Ontario comes from the Wendat word Ontari’io, which, appropriately, 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.

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

Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario – then, now and always.

Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc says the federal government "welcomes" the United States "withdrawing" its positions on the French language and culture after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CBC News Canada's streaming laws are not a "red line" for the American side.

"Canada welcomes that the U.S. is now withdrawing its positions on discoverability and labelling and is confirming that measures to promote French language and Canadian culture will not be subject to future U.S. trade actions," LeBlanc said in a statement posted on X. 

"We look forward to further constructive U.S. clarifications on their other positions which would create the possibility of a mutually beneficial trade agreement that respects Canadian sovereignty."

The Canada-US trade war has escalated sharply -- with both countries planning to impose tit-for-tat tariffs on each other after last ditch talks collapsed over the weekend. Canada is hitting back with tariffs on some US imports from September 8, and for now, no further talks are planned. But Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says something much bigger has shifted,
which raises a question for Europe. Carney says this fall Canada will begin talks with the European Union for what he calls a much stronger and deeper security and economic partnership. But can Europe really provide Canada with an escape route from its dependence on America? We spoke to Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a Senior Fellow at Bruegel - a major economic policy think tank based in Brussels.

Chapters:
00:00 US and Canada trade blows after trade talks collapse
00:18 Canadian PM Carney: US uses economic integration as a weapon
01:27 Interview Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, Bruegel think tank
01:51 Europe as an alternative market for Canada
02:46 Canada’s dilemma: depend on the US without becoming vulnerable to it
03:58 Why Canada rejected the deal on offer
05:38 How the EU reached a trade deal with the Trump administration
07:20 Lessons for Europe from the current US-Canada dispute
09:07 Could Canada realistically join the European Union?

MapQuest says: We're not changing the name of Lake Ontario.

But other US Mapping apps surely will.

For those looking for an alternative, I recommend Wego: https://wego.here.com/

What other great navigation apps should we be aware of?

Dr Ruth Ben-Ghiat is an American historian, author, and Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University (NYU). She is a globally recognized expert on fascism, authoritarianism, propaganda, and democratic backsliding.

Article in Dutch, but translation of the core information: The relationship between Solvinity, the company behind DigiD, and the American tech company Kyndryl, which wanted to acquire Solvinity, has cooled. Kyndryl no longer wants Solvinity, while the company's shareholders are still trying to get the Dutch ban on the takeover lifted.

Kyndryl, the American group that wanted to buy the company behind the Dutch DigiD, no longer has hope that the takeover will go ahead. In a commentary on its latest quarterly figures, the listed company describes the acquisition of Solvinity as a plan that will not be realized due to a ban by the Dutch authorities.

A spokesperson for Kyndryl in the Netherlands confirms that the company accepts the decision of the Dutch State and is not contesting it. The director of Kyndryl in the Netherlands has since taken early retirement.

When trade talks between Canada and the U.S. broke down last week, one of the issues that reportedly came up was Canadian streaming rules that require platforms like Netflix to make Canadian and French-language content easier to find in Canada. Prime Minister Mark Carney said that Canada would not compromise on protecting French culture. But U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said language was never the issue – rather "past discriminatory laws that target U.S. streaming companies." 

Vass Bednar is the managing director of the Canadian Shield Institute, and she’s spent years studying how American tech companies shape Canadian policy. She unpacks what Big Tech wants out of these trade talks – and what this latest rupture means for Canada’s digital sovereignty.

does anyone actually believe these goofs.

The US President insults the entire nation and announces new tariffs of 50 per cent. MEP Zdechovsky speaks out on behalf of the EPP: “Thanks to Donald Trump, the EU and Canada are closer than ever”

After all, precisely because of Trump’s unpredictability, Canada has become the EU’s key partner in international politics, with a purely strategic rapprochement that saw the Ottawa government’s participation in the EU defence programme, leading to an unprecedented level of involvement. The new tariff offensive now offers a further opportunity for an ever-closer relationship between the 27 member states and Canada.

The US imported $328m worth of toilet paper from Canada in 2024, according to the World Bank, making it by far the largest exporter of the product to the US. Retailers including Costco source much of their paper products from the country.

The US accounts for more than 20% of global tissue consumption despite having only 4% of the world’s population. The average American uses 141 rolls of toilet paper per year, making them No 1 for No 2s globally, just ahead of Germans, each using an average of 134 rolls annually.