Gordie Howe Bridge Opens After Bitter US-Canada Row

The Gordie Howe International Bridge has finally opened to motorists, ending a dispute that began in February when President Donald Trump threatened to block the launch entirely.

The celebration was, however, a lopsided affair. Canadian officials held their own ribbon-cutting ceremony in Windsor on July 24, cutting the ribbon without their American counterparts. No U.S. officials attended, either that ceremony or the bridge’s opening to traffic on July 27. 

The absence came days after the Trump administration accused Canada of discriminating against US autos, alcohol, and dairy products and announced a 50 per cent tariff on a range of Canadian goods — a fresh flashpoint that unfolded in the same week the bridge finally opened.

Linking Detroit in the US and Windsor in Canada, the six-lane cable-stayed bridge designed by architect Erik Behrens has been years in the making. Canada paid for construction, with Michigan holding a stake in the project.

The deadlock is over, but the fine print reveals a deal that looks less like a clean US-Canada win and more like Washington backing off a demand it could never fully justify, one that traces back to a political donation from a private competitor.

Trump’s February threat to block the bridge came weeks after Moroun met with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington — a meeting that followed a $1 million donation Moroun had made to a Trump-aligned super PAC three weeks earlier, on January 16.

The Moroun family has spent decades and tens of millions of dollars fighting the Gordie Howe project, including a failed 2012 Michigan ballot measure designed to block new international bridges outright. They also successfully lobbied Michigan to stay out of funding Gordie Howe, leaving Canada to pay for the entire bridge alone.

The reason the family fought so hard was clear: US government projections show Gordie Howe will capture 28 per cent of passenger traffic and nearly 45 per cent of commercial truck traffic once open, traffic that currently pays tolls at Ambassador.

And the numbers explain why. A five-axle truck crossing Ambassador pays roughly $70. The same truck crossing Gordie Howe’s discounted “Breakaway” lane pays about $34.50, half the price with faster processing.

Canada agreed to share half of the bridge’s net toll revenue with the United States for 15 years, alongside new US input on toll-rate changes and a jointly financed economic development fund.

RELATED: Why the Gordie Howe Bridge Still Can’t Open to Traffic

Lutnick announced the agreement as a 50-50 split. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney described it differently in a July interview with CTV News: Canada gets paid back first for the $5.2 billion it spent building the bridge. Only what remains after that gets divided, and Carney said that amount will be “modest” for years.

Carney has also declined to confirm the 50-50 figure when asked directly, and separately noted that any revenue-sharing only kicks in after operating costs — toll booth staffing, maintenance, snow removal — are deducted, and that tolls themselves won’t be split with the U.S. until Canada’s full construction debt is repaid.

The headline number is real, but the money behind it mostly is not there yet.

While Washington and Ottawa negotiated the agreement, freight companies had to deal with the effects of the delay. Stephen Laskowski, president of the Ontario Trucking Association, said the one-month delay increased costs and interrupted supply chains that were getting ready to use the new border crossing.

McLaren Transport, a trucking company in southwest Detroit that carries auto parts for major car companies, has faced years of customs delays and traffic problems at the Ambassador Bridge. The company’s vice president said that saving money on tolls will help the company buy more trucks and trailers.

The administration’s account of the deal, meanwhile, made no mention of the ceremony it skipped. A White House spokesperson said only that Trump “renegotiated an incredible deal for America” and would keep “negotiating more good deals” — a statement about leverage, not partnership. 

Separately, US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra has denied that Moroun’s donations played any role in the delay, telling Global News the timing was coincidental.

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