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J.D. Tuccille: Trump shouldn't have the authority to rename Lake Ontario

The controversy is overblown, but points to a real abuse of government power

In an odd way, U.S. President Donald Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario as Lake America demonstrates the limits of his power. Yes, Trump elicited the annoyed responses he hoped for from Canadian politicians. But the renaming is a symbolic gesture that binds only U.S. federal agencies. State governments and private entities in the U.S. can’t be required to use federal place names, and the order has even less clout beyond America’s borders. Relatively impotent though it is, renaming a body of water shared with another country is one of the few ways the president can provoke neighbors without risking a courtroom slap-down, as he’s received over tariffs. It’s still more power than a president should have.

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In his Aug. 27 executive order, President Trump directed that “(w)ithin 30 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) shall, in coordination with the Board on Geographic Names and consistent with 43 U.S.C. 364 through 364f, take all appropriate actions to rename as ‘Lake America’ the body of water currently named as Lake Ontario.”

J.D. Tuccille: Trump shouldn't have the authority to rename Lake Ontario Back to video

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