U.S. dollar little changed in late trading

The U.S. dollar was almost unchanged in late trading on Thursday.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, edged down 0.01 percent to 99.159 at 15:00 (1900 GMT).

In late New York trading, the euro fell to 1.1649 U.S. dollars from 1.1651 dollars in the previous session, and the British pound decreased to 1.3589 dollars from 1.3592 dollars in the previous session.

The U.S. dollar bought 159.43 Japanese yen, higher than 159.40 Japanese yen in the previous session. The U.S. dollar decreased to 0.8043 Swiss francs from 0.8055 Swiss francs, and it dropped to 1.3858 Canadian dollars from 1.3878 Canadian dollars. The U.S. dollar declined to 9.5220 Swedish kronor from 9.5329 Swedish kronor.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order directing the Department of the Interior to rename Lake Ontario "Lake America," while Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney criticized the move, noting that the lake is called Lake Ontario "today and forever."

"We're gonna to be changing the name of Lake Ontario, effective immediately, to Lake America," Trump said in the Oval Office before signing the order.

The move came just two days after Trump said on social media that the United States is giving "serious consideration" to changing the name of Lake Ontario to "Lake America," citing that "we don't expect to be doing much business with Ontario any longer."

In response, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Thursday that the name "Lake Ontario" carries a long history and that Canadians will always use this name regardless of external changes.

Carney wrote in a post on X that the name came from the Wendat word Ontari'io, which means "the lake is beautiful, the lake is big."

The name is more than 400 years old, "predating both the Confederation of Canada and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America," added the prime minister.

"We know that America is changing. Their trading relationships, their foreign policies, their national monuments, their hydronyms," Carney said.

"Canadians also know that naming reality means calling it Lake Ontario -- then, now and always," he wrote.

Trump's attempt to rename the lake came as a recent breakdown in trade talks between the two countries led to new retaliatory tariffs.

The United States and Canada failed to reach a trade deal on Aug. 21, and the United States imposed a 50-percent tariff on about 20 billion U.S. dollars' worth of Canadian goods on Aug. 22.

Canada responded by announcing "dollar-for-dollar" retaliatory tariffs on imports from the United States, set to take effect on Sept. 8.

Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes of North America, straddles the U.S.-Canada border, with the Canadian province of Ontario to the north and the U.S. state of New York to the south.