State lawmaker calls on Trump to rename Lake Erie to ‘Lake Pennsylvania’

Pennsylvania state Rep. David Maloney (R) called on President Trump this week to rename Lake Erie to “Lake Pennsylvania” following similar moves by the president earlier this year.

“This is Pennsylvania’s only Great Lake. Its modern economy and identity are increasingly tied to the boaters, anglers, families and tourists who come to enjoy it” Maloney said in a statement earlier this week . “Ohio has plenty of shoreline. New York already has two Great Lakes. Canada has four others.”

“Pennsylvania has one. Let’s call it Lake Pennsylvania,” he added.

Lake Erie is the smallest of the Great Lakes by volume and is also the shallowest, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The lake has a total of 12 million people in its watershed , split between 10.5 million people in the U.S. and 1.9 million people in Canada.

In his announcement, Maloney called on Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to enforce the name change.

Trump signed an executive order formally changing the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America” amid the ongoing trade war with Canada.

Canada’s retaliatory tariffs went into effect Tuesday with Pennsylvania expected to be heavily impacted by the 15 percent, 25 percent and 50 percent tariffs on around 6 percent of what the U.S. exported to Canada last year.

Pennsylvania’s largest export market is Canada. In 2025, Pennsylvania exported $13.9 billion in goods to Canada, representing 27 percent of the state’s total goods exports, according to the U.S. trade representative’s office .

The president has also proposed renaming New Mexico to “New America,” which initiated a negative response from several of the state’s Democratic lawmakers.