Cuts like a knife: Canadian rocker Bryan Adams trolls Trump with new song

Bryan Adams at the 2025 iHeartRadio music festival on 19 September 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photograph: Christopher Polk/Billboard/Getty ImagesView image in fullscreenBryan Adams at the 2025 iHeartRadio music festival on 19 September 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photograph: Christopher Polk/Billboard/Getty ImagesCuts like a knife: Canadian rocker Bryan Adams trolls Trump with new songMusician wrote a ‘love letter’ to Canada with a new album – and some pointed commentary about the US president

Lake Ontario, the vast body of water that straddles the US-Canada border, has gone by many names over the centuries: Lac Saint-Louis, Lacus Ontarius, Skaniadorio, Cataraqui Lake. But one thing it will never be called, says the Canadian rock star Bryan Adams, is Lake America.

In his new song Lake Ontario, Adams takes aim at the US president, Donald Trump, accusing him of “breaking the peace” between the people who live on the lake’s shores.

Trump signed an executive order in August directing US federal agencies to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America”, echoing his earlier, widely mocked decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of America”.

Read moreThe move further escalated a feud with Canada that has strained the longstanding alliance between the two countries. Trump’s decision has largely been met with derision in Canada, with some pointing out that the province of Ontario is named after the lake, not the other way around. Adams’s lyrics emphasise the roots of the name:

double quotation markThe ‘lake of shining waters’ is what the Iroquois called her

It’s a First Nations name – not an executive order.

Adams’s lyrics also suggest that Trump’s naming stunt was intended to deflect from the president’s other political problems, including the war in Iran and renewed scrutiny of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

double quotation markBut things weren’t going his way in Iran

So like a baby tossing the toys from the pram

While the Epstein files were getting traction

The song is part of what Adams described in a recent interview as a broader “love letter” to Canada: a songwriting project that began with an invitation from a film company to write about the Maritimes provinces of Canada and has since morphed into the upcoming album How’s It Goin’.

“After finishing the first song, I moved on to that one, and then moved on to another one, and then started thinking maybe I should just carry on with my theme,” he said.

As well as homages to Canadian heroes, the album also includes 51st State, released on 1 July – Canada Day – as another repudiation of Trump, in this case his efforts to annex Canada.

double quotation markYou can push us to the brink