Trump warns of blocking Detroit-Canada bridge, seeks shared US ownership

By Thomas Seal and Jennifer A Dlouhy

 

President Donald Trump said he would start negotiations with Canada over a new bridge that connects Michigan and Ontario, threatening to block its opening until the US was given compensation and ownership of half of it. 

“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,” Trump said on social media Monday. “We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY. With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset,” he added.

 

The president’s post included a picture of the Gordie Howe International Bridge project connecting Detroit and Windsor. The six-lane bridge was expected to open to traffic soon, pending formal tests and approval. It’s named after a famous Canadian hockey player who led the Detroit Red Wings.

 

It’s due to be the largest Canadian port on the US-Canada border, according to the US Department of Transportation. It was fully financed by the Canadian government at an estimated cost of C$6.4 billion ($4.7 billion). Those costs are to be repaid over time with tolls.

 

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s press secretary, Stacey LaRouche, noted that the bridge was paid for by Canada, built by union workers from both countries and “will be operated under a joint ownership agreement between Michigan and Canada.”

 

She called the project “a tremendous example of bipartisan and international cooperation” and said “it’s going to open one way or another, and the governor looks forward to attending the ribbon cutting.”

 

It’s not the first time the bridge has become an issue in the Oval Office. The US family that owns the nearby Ambassador Bridge lobbied Trump during his first term to rescind the waiver granted by President Barack Obama in 2012 that exempted the new bridge from having to use only US steel, in recognition that the Canadians were paying for it.

 

The government of Canada, the bridge authority and the Ontario premier’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

 

Candace Laing, CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said: “The Trump administration was right in 2017 in its joint statement that endorsed the bridge as a priority project, calling it ‘a vital economic link between our two countries.’”

 

Trump’s comments are his latest broadside against Canada, one of the biggest US trading partners and the country that buys more US exports than any other. Trump recently threatened to hit Canadian goods with a 100 per cent tariff if the country made a trade deal with China, and expressed annoyance at remarks from Prime Minister Mark Carney at Davos that offered a critique of the US president’s foreign and economic policies.

 

Last month, Trump also threatened to impose a 50 per cent tariff on aircraft from Canada and decertify new planes made there. He hasn’t carried out those threats so far. 

 

A deal made between Carney and Chinese President Xi Jinping in January lowered tariffs — essentially allowing more Canadian food sales to China in return for giving China a quota of electric vehicles that can be sold in Canada. Trump has cast the deal as a threat, arguing that it would give China undue influence over the US northern neighbor.

 

The president reiterated those criticisms in his social media post on Monday. “Prime Minister Carney wants to make a deal with China — which will eat Canada alive. We’ll just get the leftovers! I don’t think so.”

 

The Windsor-Detroit area is a crucial corridor for the tightly-integrated North American automotive industry, a supply chain that Trump is seeking to weaken with his tariffs. Ford Motor Co., for example, builds engines in Windsor that are shipped to the company’s US assembly plants. 

 

The Gordie Howe crossing was built, in part, because manufacturers wanted an alternative to the Ambassador Bridge.

 

In a phone interview, Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens called Trump’s post “unhinged” and “out of the blue,” but said it might help explain why the bridge’s opening had been delayed from late 2025. 

 

He said it’s a “once-in-a-generation” project and that one would normally expect to see the president and the Canadian prime minister shake hands in the middle to celebrate the relationship. But “Trump has basically made trading enemies with every country on the planet,” Dilkens said.

 

The US president also assailed Canada over restrictions on US alcohol and tariffs on dairy imports, saying those levies were “unacceptable” and put “our Farmers at great financial risk.”

 

The latest spat comes as the US and Canada prepare to renegotiate a continental trade pact — the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement — which Trump agreed to in his first term.