National Weather Service defies Trump

When President Donald Trump renamed Lake Ontario as Lake America, he aroused the suspicion of both ordinary Americans and supporters like right-wing podcaster Joe Rogan, even as he also got tech giants like Google and Apple to capitulate. Yet the National Weather Service proved to be an exception to that rule, at least on Tuesday.

"The National Weather Service in Buffalo, New York oversees marine forecasts for the entire U.S. side of what, since 1641, has been known as Lake Ontario," posted atmospheric scientist Matthew Cappucci on X on Tuesday. "But the National Weather Service can't say 'Lake Ontario' anymore – per President Trump's Executive Order 14422, it's Lake America or nothing."

He added, "Today, the Buffalo office got a bit... creative... in referring to 'our eastern Great Lake.' No directives were broken. The lake was never named."

When Trump renamed Lake Ontario as Lake America, he did so to send a message to Canada because the nation refused to capitulate to America's trade wars against it. Instead of cowing Canada, however, Trump has reinvigorated their patriotism and turned Prime Minister Mark Carney into a hero by standing up to Trump.

"It's not just Mr. Carney, he is the expression of something that he knows as a politician is now a very popular view in Canada," Dr. Richard D. Wolff — professor emeritus of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst – told AlterNet earlier in September. "He's not going to be held to blame because this or that difficulty happens. If he can show, as he often can, that the United States' hostility, tariff policy number one, is the root cause, then he gets a pass. The kind of anger that might often be addressed to a politician won't be, because they correctly perceive that the problem is something else. And so they appeal to the politician when he comes up with solutions or attempted solution to keep workers' needs in mind."

Wolff added that Canada is hardly alone among America's longtime allies in tiring of Trump's tariffs.

"Europe has now, having been for the last 75 years, the junior partner of the United States," Wolff told AlterNet. "That was the situation that came out of World War II. Europe, empire over, new empire, the Americans, and the Europeans can come along for the ride, but they're the junior partner. Well, they've now been attacked with tariffs too, and they're very upset and they're very angry and they're not about to make deals with the United States anywhere like they used to, because of that reaction. And now it'll be a struggle between them and Mr. Trump over how this gets worked out. But it is, I can assure you, this whole attack, counterattack is shaking up every corner of European politics."