I’ve always found something charming about Canada Day, the July 1 national celebration, landing just three days before America’s Independence Day.

The two holidays are ideologically opposed: Canada Day celebrates the country’s 1867 confederation under British law, while July Fourth celebrates a violent revolution against the crown. Yet after centuries of peace, with the two countries now sharing the longest undefended border in the world, the timing normally feels less like dueling celebrations than a week-long joint birthday party.

So leave it to Donald Trump to reintroduce tension to the holidays.

Last Friday, just as Canadians were getting ready for the pre-holiday weekend, Trump declared that the United States is renewing hostilities in the briefly suspended trade war. “We are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately,” he wrote on Truth Social, adding that “we will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period.”

And then, in a Sunday interview on Fox News, he renewed the rhetoric that most infuriated Canadians: his claim that Canada should be annexed by the United States. “Frankly, Canada should be the 51st state. It really should,” he told anchor Maria Bartiromo. “Because Canada relies entirely on the United States. We don’t rely on Canada.”

In thinking through all of this, I’ve found one voice especially clarifying: the Canadian conservative philosopher George Grant.

In 1965, Grant published a short book — titled Lament for a Nation — arguing that Canada’s increasing integration with the United States was a kind of national suicide. This was, in part, a political matter: By hitching its economy and defense to those of a much larger neighbor, Canada effectively surrendered its ability to set its own political course.

But it was also a kind of spiritual death: By embracing free trade and open borders with the United States, Grant argued, Canada was selling its conservative soul to the American ethos of never-ending revolutionary progress. It was, in effect, turning Canada Day into an early July Fourth.

Given the Trump threat, Grant’s argument feels more vital than it has in decades — prompting a round of intellectual reconsiderations. Recent pieces........

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