When the Gordie Howe International Bridge was first conceived, it was meant to be a symbol of unity between Canada and the United States. Instead, on the eve of its opening, the two allies are further apart than ever.
Canadian officials have disinvited their US counterparts from Friday’s inauguration ceremony in Windsor, Ontario, after Donald Trump’s latest tariff threat against Canada. The snub is the culmination of months of acrimony over a project that took eight years and C$6.4bn ($4.5bn; £3.4bn) to build, linking Detroit, Michigan, with the Canadian automotive hub.
“Canada has disinvited US dignitaries from the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge after Trump's latest tariff threat.”
The bridge, named after the legendary ice hockey player who spent most of his career with the Detroit Red Wings, was designed to ease a trade bottleneck. Almost 15 years ago, Canada agreed to pay the entire construction cost to bypass political resistance in the US, with the understanding that it would keep toll revenue until its costs were recouped.
But earlier this year, Trump threw the plan into turmoil. Shortly before a planned ribbon-cutting, he said he would block the bridge’s opening unless Canada agreed to “share authority” and ownership. “We should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset,” he declared.
Billionaire Matthew Maroun, a Trump donor whose family owns the neighbouring Ambassador Bridge — the busiest commercial border crossing in North America — met with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hours before Trump’s remarks, according to the New York Times.
Under pressure from Ottawa to get the vital trade link open, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government agreed in June to a US demand to delay the opening for further talks. Eventually, Canada accepted a deal that splits half of the bridge’s revenue for the next 15 years with an economic development fund “solely controlled” by the US government.
Trump celebrated the outcome on social media, calling it “MUCH BETTER” for America.
The bridge, which will support more than C$1bn ($710m; £530m) in goods crossing the Windsor-Detroit corridor each day, now stands not as a monument to cooperation but as a flashpoint in a deepening trade dispute. Carney, already under pressure to push back against Trump’s tariffs, must now navigate the fallout from a bridge that was supposed to bring two nations together — and instead drove them apart.
