The leader of the Seneca Nation in upstate New York is criticizing President Donald Trump's decision to rename Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” saying it violates a more than 225-year-old treaty and shows a “blatant disrespect” for the Indigenous people who gave it its name in the first place.
Seneca Nation President J. Conrad Seneca on Friday called for Trump's order to be rescinded and for the Lake Ontario name to remain as a reflection of the Indigenous people in the U.S. and Canada who lived in territory around and along the lake long before the creation of either nation.
“The President cannot assert ownership over our culture or erase it through irresponsible political action," he said in a statement.
Trump this week signed an order directing the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service, part of his escalating trade war with Canada. The order showed the change is supposed to be made in 30 days.
Seneca said the renaming violated the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, which was signed by President George Washington and the Haudenosaunee confederacy promising perpetual peace and friendship. The Seneca are one of the six nations of the confederacy, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy.
The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people’s word “oniatarí:io,” which means “lake of shining waters.” The Canadian province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.
In the traditional Seneca language, the lake's name is “sga:nyodai:yoh," meaning “beautiful lake," Seneca said.
Trump floated the name change in recent days as the U.S. announced it was imposing new tariffs on Canadian goods after talks broke down between the countries. Canada responded with its own retaliatory tariffs on American goods, while the country's leaders slammed the idea of changing the lake's name.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney rejected the move, noting the lake’s Indigenous roots and that the name predates both the Canadian Confederation and the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Trump can't force Canada to follow along with the renaming.
Trump has argued that Canada has been ripping off the U.S. on trade and military issues and suggested Canada should be absorbed as the 51st state.
People look out across Lake Ontario and the Toronto Skyline from the Toronto Harbour in Toronto on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2026. (Keito Newman/The Canadian Press via AP)
President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Friday that his administration has entered a sweeping agreement with Venezuela that, if realized, could give the U.S. access to vast amounts of the South American country’s untapped oil reserves, at cost.
Trump in a social media post announcing the agreement said it was negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez.
“The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!” Trump wrote.
Rodríguez’s government in a statement said the deal involves the development of 17 fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels. It said the agreement could draw $100 billion in investment into Venezuela's oil industry and yield over $209 billion in taxes for Caracas.
Rodríguez in a posting on Telegram predicted the deal “will have a significant impact on our nation’s revival.”
The agreement allows for the United States to partner with an unnamed private operator in Venezuela to create a new private company to take hold of the reserves, according to a U.S. official familiar with the contours of the deal.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, added that Rodriguez granted the company 100-year rights to develop the oil fields.
The deal gives the United States 55% effective output of the new private company -- including an ownership stake and rights to buy oil at cost. The company would be the second largest corporate holder of proven reserves after Saudi Aramco, according to the official.
The announcement comes nearly nine months after the U.S. military at Trump’s direction carried out an operation to capture Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro and spirit him to the United States to face federal narcoterrorism and drug trafficking charges.
Trump faces mounting pressure to address high gas prices as the war in Iran on Friday reached a six-month milestone with no conclusion in sight. The U.S. has tapped its strategic petroleum reserves, which in early August fell below 300 million barrels, down by more than 100 million barrels since the start of 2026.
The U.S.-Israel war against Iran has led to a dramatic slowdown of Gulf oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz, which about 20% of the world petroleum passed through prior to the conflict.
The average price of gas in the U.S. stood at about $4.09 a gallon on Friday, according to AAA. The average price was $3.21 at the same time last year.
A significant drop in U.S. gas prices tied to the agreement should not be expected immediately. Experts have repeatedly warned that a substantial boost in Venezuelan oil production will not happen quickly as repairing and expanding infrastructure takes years and requires billions of dollars.
Persuading big American oil companies to return the region could face headwinds given the political uncertainty and decades of badly damaged infrastructure.
Days after the ouster of Maduro, Trump gathered oil executives at the White House and called on them to rush back into Venezuela. Executives expressed interest in the opportunity but there was also a measure of caution given their past experience in the country.
Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company, said at that moment he saw the country as “un-investable.”
But Trump has insisted that his administration has brought a measure of stability to Venezuela.
He has argued that Venezuela stole U.S. oil when former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez moved decades ago to nationalize hundreds of foreign-owned assets, including those owned by American oil companies.
Rodriguez, in one of her early moves after taking power, signed a law that opens the nation’s oil sector to privatization and reversed a bedrock tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that had ruled the country for more than two decades.
Rubio said on X that the agreement would usher in billions in private investment into Venezuela and lead to lower gas prices in the United States.
“This deal is a huge win for both the American and Venezuelan people,” Rubio posted.
The oil bought from the new company would go toward filling the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve and toward military use, according to the U.S. official.
Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world, with an estimated 303 billion barrels of crude oil in the ground. That’s about 17% of the world’s supply, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Unlike other parts of the world, where geologists have to search for untapped oil, the reserves under Venezuela’s soil are largely mapped and known, experts say. But because of dilapidated infrastructure, the country only produces about 1% of the world’s oil.
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Garcia Cano reported from Caracas.
President Donald Trump waves after arriving off Air Force One, Friday, Aug. 28, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
