A Lake by Any Other Name Still Needs Cleaning Up

Washington spent the week arguing about what to call a Great Lake. An executive order rechristened one of them "Lake America," and the premier of Ontario laughed it off on camera like a late-night sketch. Fine. Let him laugh. What a Canadian provincial official thinks of our maps is not my concern, and it should not be yours.

Here is my concern. Eight American states touch the Great Lakes: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. Tens of millions of Americans drink that water, fish those shores, and earn their living in the ports and plants along them. Not one of those families is better off today because a lake has a new name. Not one job was created. Not one gallon of water got cleaner.

Names don't build anything

I have never been shy about putting an American stamp on American things. But a name is a coat of paint, and you do not paint a house whose foundation is cracking. A rename that changes nothing on the ground is a distraction, and distractions are how the Swamp keeps you looking at the wrong hand.

Ask the people of Erie, Toledo, Duluth or Buffalo what they need from Washington. You will not hear "a new name for the lake." You will hear about the locks and harbors that have been waiting decades for repair. You will hear about algae blooms that shut down drinking water and beaches every summer. You will hear about chemicals in the water that no one asked for. You will hear about the shipping and manufacturing jobs that left and never came back.

What a Square Deal for the Great Lakes looks like

Fix the plumbing. Finish the lock and harbor work that keeps American ore, grain and steel moving. A single failure at the Soo Locks would idle American factories within weeks. That is a national security problem, and I will treat it like one.

Clean the water. Fully fund Great Lakes restoration, go after the runoff that feeds the algae, and hold polluters, foreign and domestic, to account. I did not set aside 230 million acres of this country so that a later generation could shrug at poisoned water.

Put the shoreline back to work. Shipbuilding, ports, energy and manufacturing along the lakes are American jobs that cannot be offshored. My administration will back the American companies and American workers who do that work, with the same vigor others spend on ceremony.

The bully pulpit is for real fights

I understand the appeal of a symbolic gesture. Symbols matter. But they matter most when they follow action, not replace it. The American people are not looking for someone to win an argument with a Canadian premier. They are looking for someone who will show up in Gary and Cleveland and Green Bay and do the hard, unglamorous work of making those places thrive again.

Call the lake what you like. I will be busy fixing it.

Stand with us

If you live on the Great Lakes, or you simply believe Washington should spend its energy on things that change your life, join this campaign. Volunteer. Share this. Chip in what you can. We have real work to do, and we intend to do it.