Sometimes, the shortest of lives inspire millions. And so it is with the oak tree that French President Emmanuel Macron ceremonially planted with President Trump on the South Lawn of the White House. It was intended as a symbol of the enduring Franco-American alliance. But on June 11, Macron confirmed it had died. It has gone on to the great oak forest in the sky.

The anonymous sapling — a tree has no name, you might say — was born in France before, Lafayette-like, setting out for the land of the free. Appallingly, however, like so many immigrants in Trump’s America, the tree had to undergo extreme vetting, in this case the quarantine mandated for foreign plants, which Macron said contributed to the tree’s demise. The soil giveth, the bureaucracy taketh away.