The Battle of Lake Ontario: Trump opens a new front in the war on things with names

There are moments in American history when you can almost hear the machinery of government grinding toward a solution.

This is not one of them.

Michigan has plenty of problems that could use Washington’s attention. Families are getting mugged at the checkout counter by high prices. Michigan manufacturers are getting squeezed by another round of tariffs on Canadian goods. Communities are still living with the poisoned legacy of the Flint Water Crisis, while PFAS contamination continues to threaten drinking water in communities across the state.

In other words, Michigan has actual water problems. Problems involving the water we drink. Not what we call a lake.

But with all of that demanding attention, Donald Trump has decided that his top priority should be renaming Lake Ontario as some sort of “gotcha” toward the Canadian government, which has the gall to stand up for its sovereignty. 

Trump has ordered federal agencies to refer to Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” because apparently the best way to conduct trade negotiations with Canada is to pick an idiotic fight with a body of water. That’ll show ‘em. Nevermind that the province of Ontario is named after the lake and not the other way around. Clearly, facts mean little in all of this.

Regardless, we can all breathe easier knowing someone is tackling the important stuff. Forget lowering prices. Forget public health. Forget doing something, anything, to better the lives of our citizens. That would require actual work. Better to sign a meaningless piece of paper that most of the rest of the world will surely ignore.

New tariffs on Canada heighten Michigan Democrats’ affordability attacks on Trump, GOP

For Michigan, this would be funny if the consequences weren’t so damn serious. Because Canada isn’t some faraway country that Michiganders encounter only on a map.

Canada is right there.

Detroit looks across the river at Windsor. Michigan and Ontario are connected by roads, bridges, tunnels, pipelines, power grids, supply chains and decades of economic cooperation.

Michigan businesses depend on Canadian trade. Michigan workers depend on Canadian-connected industries. And millions of Michiganders live in a state whose economy and identity are inseparable from the Great Lakes.

So when Washington picks an economic fight with Canada, Michigan doesn’t get to sit this one out.

Instead, we get the bill.

The Trump administration’s latest tariffs on Canadian goods threaten to raise costs for consumers and squeeze businesses on both sides of the border. Michigan Democrats are already hammering Republicans over affordability, and it’s not difficult to understand why. 

When you slap a massive tax on goods coming from one of your largest trading partners, somebody eventually pays.

Spoiler alert: It’s you.

It’s the family buying groceries. The worker putting gas in the car. The manufacturer paying more for inputs. The small business trying to survive another round of economic whiplash.

But don’t worry.

The lake has been renamed.

And now comes the most embarrassing part: watching Republican politicians scramble to decide whether they should cheer this nonsense or simply pretend it never happened.

Some dutifully applaud, eager to demonstrate their loyalty to Trump no matter how ridiculous the spectacle. Others will attempt the political equivalent of the Homer Simpson meme — slowly backing into the bushes and hoping nobody notices them disappearing. And who can blame them? When the president picks a fight with a lake, the safest political position is to say nothing. But cravenness in service of party loyalty is the exact opposite of what we need from our leaders.

What’s worse, and frankly unforgivable, is that Michigan is uniquely exposed to the consequences of a thoughtless trade war .

This state has spent generations building an economy around cross-border commerce. We don’t just trade with Canada — we build things together. 

Parts cross the border. Energy crosses the border. Workers cross the border. Products cross the border. Families cross the border.

Before 9/11, teens occasionally crossed the border because Canada has a lower drinking age.

At least, that’s what I’ve heard. Strictly journalism here.

Anyway, the point is that the relationship is so deeply woven into Michigan life that the international border can sometimes feel less like a wall and more like a seam. Trump keeps trying to turn that seam into a battlefield.

And then, apparently, he looks at the Great Lakes and thinks: You know what this needs? Branding.

A trade war isn’t a television show. Tariffs aren’t applause lines. They are taxes that work their way through supply chains until they eventually land in someone’s budget.

So while Trump is busy declaring that a lake needs a more patriotic name, Michigan businesses are left wondering what the next tariff will cost them.

And consumers are wondering why everything costs so damn much. And public-health officials are still dealing with measles.

And Americans are still watching a war that shows no obvious interest in ending.

But hey — Lake America.

There is something almost poetic about it. A president confronted with enormous, complicated problems has chosen the one solution that requires absolutely no competence whatsoever.

If the name fits…