Wisconsin politicians joke about Lake Michigan name change

Wisconsin politicians made jokes out of President Trump’s executive order aiming to rename Lake Ontario, jesting about the renaming of Lake Michigan, another Great Lake.

On Thursday, the president put his signature on an executive order formally changing the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” amid U.S.-Canadian trade tensions.

“We’re going to be changing the name of Lake Ontario effective immediately to Lake America,” Trump told reporters.

Wisconsin politicians made fun of Trump’s move, with the state’s governor, Tony Evers (D), saying in a Thursday post on the social platform X that he had “just renamed Lake Michigan Lake Wisconsin.”

“See, I can sign napkins that say things, too,” Evers added, with his post featuring a video of him writing on a napkin.

The Lake Michigan joke was also made on the other side of the aisle, with Rep. Tony Wied (R-Wis.) saying in his own post on X that “while we’re at it – Lake Wisconsin sounds good too.”

Thursday’s executive order came after Trump initially publicly floated changing the name of Lake Ontario earlier this week as a trade war heated up between the U.S. and Canada. Trump told reporters he had thought about renaming the Great Lake for “a long time.”

Over the weekend, trade tensions between Washington and Ottawa boiled over after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney removed negotiators from trade discussions with the Americans.

The fresh tensions follow a pattern of rocky relations between the two North American neighbors, who both border the Great Lakes, during Trump’s second term.

Beyond rough patches over trade, Trump has talked about Canada becoming the U.S.’s 51st state in recent years, rhetoric that has been rejected by the Canadians.