Despite the best efforts of President Trump, the Gordie Howe International Bridge spanning Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, will open on July 27, the government of Canada announced on Friday evening.
The soaring 6.4 billion Canadian dollar ($4.5 billion) structure has reshaped the skylines of the two border cities, between which roughly $300 million in trade flows each day. It is also precisely the kind of large infrastructure project Prime Minister Mark Carney has championed as a bulwark against the economic damage caused by Mr. Trump’s trade war with Canada.
Two senior officials in the United States said that the two countries reached a deal on Thursday about how tolls would be distributed, allowing the bridge to finally open.
The bridge was largely finished early this year, nearly 13 years after Canada and Michigan signed an agreement that allowed construction to begin — a timeline stretched by pandemic-related delays.
In February, Mr. Trump said in a rambling social media post that he intended to block the bridge’s opening. A ceremony scheduled for early June was called off after invitations had already gone out, and the Trump administration spent the months that followed his first post offering shifting explanations for the president’s opposition.
Mr. Trump’s initial post came hours after Matthew Moroun, the billionaire scion of the family that has owned the bridge since 1979, met in Washington with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, The New York Times reported. Less than a month before that meeting, Mr. Moroun had donated $1 million to a super PAC supporting the president.
Mr. Trump’s early objections included a desire to punish Canada for what he described as its exploitation of the American economy and its renewed trade ties with China. He also falsely claimed that no American workers or steel had been used in the bridge’s construction.
Then Pete Hoekstra, the United States ambassador to Canada, indicated that the Trump administration was upset about the toll arrangement worked out by Canada and Michigan in 2012.
Canada bore the full cost of construction and the bridge is jointly owned by Canada and Michigan. Under the original agreement, once tolls recover the construction costs, perhaps 50 years from now, the two governments would split any revenue not needed for maintenance and operations.
Mr. Hoekstra, who also falsely claimed that it was a “hoax” that Canada paid for the bridge, later suggested that the United States was looking for a way for Michigan to see revenue from the bridge sooner.
Under the new agreement, the Canadian official said, half of the tolls will go into a regional economic development fund for the first 15 years of operation. The United States will also have to approve toll increases beyond 10 percent, a U.S. official said. Previously, tolls were to be managed by an authority composed of representatives of Canada and Michigan.
Michigan’s government was initially cool to the federal intervention on tolls, though its position has since softened.
“It’s good for Michigan workers and it’s good for Michigan’s auto industry,” Stacey LaRouche, the press secretary for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, said in a statement last month. “This project has been a tremendous example of bipartisan and international cooperation.”
On Friday, Ms. Whitmer welcomed the end of the saga.
“The Gordie Howe International Bridge has always been a great deal for our state,” she said in a statement. “I’m proud to have fought for its opening and congratulate my partners who have worked on this issue alongside me for years.”
The Morouns, who made their fortune largely through trucking before expanding into real estate, have long been unpopular on both sides of the border. In Detroit, many of their decaying landmark properties became unwelcome symbols of the city’s struggles.
Across in Windsor, the Ambassador Bridge is a notoriously bad neighbor. At times, poor maintenance caused pieces of the bridge to crash to the ground. The bridge company further tarnished its reputation when it bought a swath of a neighborhood in preparation for its unfulfilled new bridge. The houses were boarded up and left to rot.
For a critical trade crossing, the Ambassador Bridge is oddly disconnected from expressways. The long lines of trucks traveling to and from it are forced into a gear-griding slog along a city road lined with traffic lights.
Fare hikes on the Ambassador Bridge have prompted large numbers of commercial drivers to detour and cross on a Canadian government-owned bridge about 100 miles to the north between Port Huron, Mich, and Sarnia, Ontario.
