Ever since Donald began his second term as the U.S. president, ten weeks ago, he has been saying that Canada should be the 51st U.S. state. (See my recent blog post: “Canada: Offer the U.S. to Be Your Eleventh Providence.”) At first, when Trump said this, back in December before returning to the White House, many government leaders, including Canada’s own Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, thought he was joking.
Trump Isn’t Joking, Saying Canada Should Be 51st U.S. State
But it soon became apparent to many of them that he wasn’t joking. Last week, Trump said it again and said that he was not joking. Of course, the idea is abhorrent to most Canadians.
It is natural for human beings to get attached to a land and people in order to establish community, which is important to mental health. To uproot people from their community is detrimental to them and causes chaos.
Donald Trump has said throughout much of his life, and demonstrated, that he loves to cause chaos. He first ran for the U.S. presidency, in 2015-2016, on the alleged platform that Washington, D.C., as the nation’s capital, was a “swamp” full of corruption. His motto therefore was, “drain the swamp.” How do you do that? Cause chaos!
Canada Says It Ain’t Gonna Happen
Canadians are not buying it, especially their new prime minister Mark Carney. He said Canada will never become part of the U.S. Moreover, as Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canada products imported to the U.S. are set to begin tomorrow, Carney said last Thursday in Parliament, “The old relationship we had with the United States, … is over.” What a travesty! That relationship was one of the best in the entire world for centuries.
Trump is disobeying the Bible in this assertion. It has always been God’s plan for human beings to have their own nation and land. I begin my book, Palestine Is Coming: The Revival of Ancient Philistia (1990), with this theme by saying (p. 11), “Every nation is entitled to a land of its own. … Nations have always been God’s plan for man. In the beginning God told man to ‘fill (populate) the earth, and subdue it’ (Gen 1.28; 9.1). To accomplish this, God ‘made’ the nations (Deut 26.19; Ps 86.9). Even in the Messianic kingdom, ‘nations’ will come to Jerusalem to worship God (e.g., Isa 2.2; Zech 14.16). The concept of nations, however, dos not justify the belligerent nationalism which sparks wars of conquest.”
Trump’s “America First” foreign policy could spark wars of conquest. Some leaders of national governments, political analysts, and economists are saying Trump’s tariffs, which for most nations begin tomorrow, are war.
Trump Is Threatening Greenland, Too
But it’s not only Canada that President Trump has threatened with U.S. conquest. He also is saying the same about Greenland, that one way or another it will become part of the U.S. When his Vice President J.D. Vance and his wife visited Greenland days ago, J.D. had the audacity to declare that the U.S. would soon “get Greenland … 100 per cent.” But Greenland’s Prime Minister Frederik Nielsen quickly responded, “Let me be clear: The U.S. will not get that. We do not belong to others. We decide our own future.”
Trump afterwards affirmed Vance’s assertion, saying, “We’ll get Greenland. Yeah, 100 per cent.” He then said he would not rule out using military force to do so.
Will U.S. Military Attack Canada or Greenland?
I served in both the U.S. Army and Air Force for 7.5 years. I believe that if President Trump commanded our military to attack either Canada or Greenland in a declared effort to force it to become U.S. territory, our military would refuse to obey the order and the Congress might support such a revolt. And, as I stated above, such a disobedience to a presidential command would be in accordance with what God says in the Bible.
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