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Reflections
Amid Trump’s ‘Lake America’ stink, the Chinese emperor whose renaming campaign backfired
Two thousand years ago, Wang Mang’s renaming of places, peoples and titles fuelled rebellions that ended both his regime and his life
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Having lived his whole life in the modern cities of Singapore and Hong Kong, Wee Kek Koon has an inexplicable fascination with the past.
I suspect many Americans are embarrassed by their president’s recent actions. On August 27, Donald Trump signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America” following the collapse of trade talks between the United States and Canada.
The change applies only in the US, while Canada and the rest of the world continue to call it Lake Ontario. Doug Ford, premier of the Canadian province of Ontario, has put up a sign declaring “Lake Ontario Now and Always”. The lake, meanwhile, remains impressively indifferent.
This is not the first time Trump has renamed something. In January 2025, he renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”. The rest of the world, and many in the US, have ignored the change.
His recent attempt to rename The John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts “The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts” was thwarted when a judge ruled the change illegal.
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