Windsor/Detroit Gordie Howe International Bridge

"[Prime Minister Mark Carney has] negotiated a terrible deal for Canada."

"We took the risk and the cost. We deserve to recover our money."

"What precisely will be divided? Gross toll revenues, operating profit, net profit after expenses after Canada has fully recovered its investment?"

Conservative Canada-U.S trade critic Shuvaloy Majundar

 

"I'm happy the bridge is going to be open. We need it. We need it because we're expanding."

"The word 'net' does a lot of work in this. We are sharing after Canada is paid back. We get the revenues. Then the servicing of the costs of the bridge and paying the debt of the bridge, and then what's left over, there's a split of that for 15 years." 

"We are sharing after Canada is paid back. It's manning the toll booths, it's maintenance, it's snow removal, a series of other operational costs. So we get the revenues, then the servicing of the cost of the bridge and paying the debt of the bridge."

"And then what's left over, there's a split of that for 15 years."

"There's not going to be a lot of net to split. It's a good deal for Canada." 

Prime Minister Mark Carney 

 

"I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve." (February) 

"The new deal is great, and fair. Thank you and congratulations to the Canadian Government."

"May we both have many years of success with this wonderful new development."  (July)

"I was able to cut a MUCH BETTER DEAL for America, and by so doing, will be allowing the new and spectacular Gordie Howe International Bridge, spanning Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, to open on July 27th, as scheduled. The original deal made was unacceptable to me! The new deal is great and fair." 

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

Gordie Howe International Bridge

 

Under the original agreement between Canada and Michigan which was signed as a contract in 2012, Canada, which paid for the construction of the $6.4 billion bridge, offered half ownership to Michigan. The contract stipulated that Canada would collect bridge tolls until such time as the capital costs expended by Canada were recouped. Following that, bridge toll revenues would be evenly split between Canada and Michigan. Because President Trump vetoed that understanding, a new, opaque agreement was reached to satisfy U.S. demands.

 

"Mark Carney's capitulation to Trump on the Gordie Howe Bridge is awful for Canada", commented opposition MP Andrew Lawton. While MP for Calgary Heritage Shuv Majumdar named it as "a terrible deal for Canada". He had written to Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc that the full agreement be released before the official bridge opening on July 27, so that the those who paid for the bridge -- Canadian taxpayers -- would be in possession of "a complete account of what was given away, what was received, and the true cost of this deal". 

 

An American official, reported Bloomberg News, contradicted Mr. Carney's statements; interest costs are not to be included in the calculation. In 2018 a bridge connecting Windsor and Detroit went under construction, although the owners of the long standing Ambassador Bridge made every attempt beforehand to stall and stop the initiative that would compete with the revenues they had long received as the sole bridge handling over a quarter of all trucked Canada-U.S. trade. 

 

Gordie Howe International Bridge from Detroit, Detroit Free Press

 

And while Mr. Carney stated no split of toll revenue would occur  until the debt is fully repaid, U.S. President Trump in February announced the terms of the deal did not pass muster with him as final arbiter, eventually blocking a June opening ceremony following completion of construction. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is credited with bringing the president around to that opinion. The Moroun family, owners of the Ambassador Bridge had the ear of the Trump administration. All the more so as significant $1-million contributors to Trump's MAGA campaign. 

"I'm proud to have fought for its opening and congratulate my partners who have worked on this issue alongside me for years."

"This bridge is a testament to the enduring partnership between Michigan and Canada and what we can et done when we think big and bet on our shared future together."

"Thank you to our allies in Canada and to the Michiganders who advocated for years to get this done."

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer 

 Trump's tariffs have disrupted trade flows between the U.S. and Canada, but not entirely. There was an exchange of some $880 billion in goods and services in 2025, slightly diminished by about five percent less than the year before. While many Canadians have taken to boycotting recreational travel to the United States in protest of the tariffs as well as the U.S. president's anti-Canadian rhetoric, not to mention his constant musings and urges over the '51st State', these conditions may presage a lighter traffic flow than originally envisioned.

 

President Trump on Tuesday reposted an image with himself in the Oval Office surrounded by other world leaders, obviously produced by AI. A map of North America appears in the image, with the U.S. Stars and Stripes imposed over Canada and Greenland.  

 

 

 

"Perhaps Canada's willingness to pay a bribe was the correct thing to do in the short term, but signing long-term deals with the U.S. on anything has suffered an additional blow."

"[The opening was a] plus for commerce, but] it's bad for credibility, faith in contracts and a system of law and order, the viability of making long-term deals with the U.S., and democracy. It's blatantly unfair and commingles donor politics with commerce once again."

"Canadians have a right to know the full details, like was the Moroun family paid off somehow in the murky language of shared proceeds?"

Derek Holt, vice-president, head of capital markets economics, Scotiabank, Toronto 

There's That Ten-Letter Word: C O R R U P T I O N

"The Gordie Howe Bridge has been a bipartisan priority because it supports jobs, makes transport easier, and will lower costs."

"At the last minute, the President wants to derail this hugely important project because a billionaire campaign donor told him to."

"This kind of blatant corruption hurts working families, and needs to end. For the sake of Michigan's economy, let's pass this bill."

Kristen McDonald Rivet, Democratic U.S. Representative 

 

"Twenty-five years in the making. Seven years of construction, and, at its peak, 2,500 workers on-site. Costing $6.4 billion and stretching 2.5 kilometres—the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America, rising 46 metres above the Detroit River—the Gordie Howe International Bridge is much more than these impressive numbers."

"“The Gordie Howe International Bridge is a symbol of the friendship between Michigan and Canada and a testament to what’s possible when we work together,” said Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer when the bridge deck was completed last July."

"Construction started on October 18, 2018, and after more than 19 million work hours, the structure is complete. What remains before the first vehicle crosses the bridge is testing, re-testing and training."

David McPherson, ReNew Canada

Could Trump block bridge opening? Workers are shown at the Gordie Howe International Bridge in Detroit on Tuesday, February 10, 2026. Photo by Dan Janisse /The Windsor Star

 

After having praised the building of the Gordie Howe International Bridge linking Windsor, Ontario to Detroit Michigan, as a second bridge crossing, after the century-old Ambassador Bridge, in 2017, President Trump suddenly diverted from pushing for the "expeditious completion" of the bridge, to posting outraged messages on his social media site. His apoplectic charges have no base in reality, however.  

Canada, he states, has treated the U.S. "very unfairly for decades", including the charge that the bridge was built "with virtually no U.S. content". "With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset", he grumped. Well, in fact, Detroit does 'own one-half' of the bridge, a gift from Canada. Canada, as it happens, footed the entire $6.4 billion cost of the bridge, but has granted joint ownership between Canada and the state of Michigan. Once the cost of the bridge has been paid through collected tolls, toll receipts are to be divided evenly between Canada and Michigan.

This is called mutual partnership generosity. In the building of the bridge, American workers were employed alongside their Canadian counterparts. The bridge was built with the use of American steel included in the process. "I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them", thundered the American president in righteous fury on a Truth Social post. 

U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to the Detroit Economic Club on Jan. 13. (Ryan Sun/The Associated Press)

"I know the importance of Michigan manufacturing and that's why I'm demanding Trump drop this reckless threat, let the bridge open, and stop playing games with our jobs and our economy." 

"[By threatening to block the opening of the bridge, Trump is] unsurprisingly [placing jobs and] billions of dollars in economic growth at risk."

U.S. Representative Haley Stevens 

It has been reported by the New York Times that the president's post was prefaced by a meeting mere hours before, when U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnik and Matthew Moroun, the billionaire private Lebanese-American owner of the Ambassador Bridge, took place. This is a bridge that rivals the new Gordie Howe Bridge which has enjoyed its monopolistic trade conduit between Windsor and Detroit since 1929. The company representing the owners has parted with millions of dollars over the past decade in an attempt to thwart government plans for a competing, publicly-owned bridge.

 

Trucks line up to clear customs and cross the Ambassador Bridge, the busiest commercial vehicle crossing between Canada and the U.S. (Patrick Morrell/CBC)

 

Major Republican donors, the Moroun family expended some $30 million on a failed Michigan ballot proposal in 2012 to block construction of the Gordie Howe Bridge. Dozens of lawsuits toward the same end have also been launched. In the background is the fact that Michigan entered a bilateral agreement in 2012 to advance construction of the bridge, with no direct cost to the taxpayers of Michigan. The project was known for "demonstrating the project's nonpartisan importance to American workers, manufacturers, and national competitiveness". 

 

The Gordie Howe Bridge between Windsor, Ont., and Detroit, seen here on May 10, 2024, is expected to open sometime in 2026 after almost a decade of construction. (Patrick Morrell/CBC)