President Donald Trump spent years promising to make Mexico pay for a wall at the US southern border. Mexico did not.
In a strange twist, Trump is now threatening to block the opening of a bridge at the northern border that Canada actually already paid for.
This is either next-level negotiation or a misunderstanding of the facts, or both, but an ultimatum Trump made on social media is the latest in a string of erratic moves that have confused his fellow world leaders.
The Gordie Howe International Bridge is basically completed
Trump should have previously known that the brand-new Gordie Howe International Bridge, which connects Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, is set to open early this year, since his first administration tried to speed up construction in 2017.
The bridge is entirely funded by Canada, which decided to foot the bill after years of waiting for buy-in from the US. Conservative groups in the US have opposed spending taxpayer dollars on the bridge.
Canada wants a better tie-in to its freeway system and more capacity for trade than what’s offered by the nearly 100-year-old Ambassador Bridge. But the billionaire Moroun family, which owns the Ambassador Bridge, opposes the competition the publicly owned bridge will pose to the tolls it’s been raking in for decades. The Morouns’ company also operates tax-free concessions and fuel sales at the port of entry. In 2018, they lobbied, unsuccessfully, for the Trump administration to stop construction, according to reports at the time.
Trump seems to mistake the facts
Trump seemed not to understand what’s happening in his statement on Truth Social. This is from Trump’s post:
They (Canada) own both the Canada and the United States side and, of course, built it with virtually no U.S. content. President Barack Hussein Obama stupidly gave them a waiver so they could get around the BUY AMERICAN Act, and not use any American products, including our Steel.
This is incorrect, at least according to the 2012 agreement by which Canada promised to pay for the bridge, splitting oversight and ownership with Michigan. Tolls are meant to pay for the operation and recoup the $4 billion to $6 biillion construction costs before ultimately being split.
Trump should know something about this because in 2017 he issued a joint statement with Canada’s then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The two leaders called for the bridge’s “expeditious completion.”
Actually, ‘a great example of cooperation’
Current Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday he has already talked to Trump about the social media post and tried to clear up any misconceptions.
“I explained that Canada, of course, paid for the construction of the bridge, over $4 billion; that the ownership is shared between the state of Michigan and the government of Canada; and that in the construction of the bridge, obviously there’s Canadian steel, Canadian workers, but also US steel, US workers that are involved. This is a great example of cooperation between our countries,” Carney told reporters.
Trump may not trust Carney at the moment, however, since Carney said at an international gathering in Switzerland last month that smaller countries like Canada can no longer count on protection from big countries such as the US.
Reflecting that shift in sentiment, Carney and Canada, who have been repeatedly threatened by Trump, are seeking a new trade agreement with China.
Wait, the end of hockey?
Trump mentioned that trade deal in his post about the bridge when he made the even more unbelievable claim that China would outlaw ice hockey in Canada.
“The first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup,” Trump said. Seems unlikely.
The US is bigger, so it knows Canada will negotiate
Trump’s Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, during an appearance on Fox Business on Tuesday, said he did not know the details of the bridge agreement. But he promised there would be a new negotiation for no other reason than the US is a bigger economy and has more power.
“We have a $29 trillion economy. The Canadian economy is, you know, between 1 and $2 trillion,” Greer said. “The United States needs to make sure that it has its fair share of any proceeds from that bridge and the economic activity that it generates.”
What does Trump actually want?
Reading the between the lines, Trump may simply be angling for concessions from Canada. He mentioned in his social media post that Ontario continues a boycott of US spirits over Trump’s tariff policy. He also mentioned how Canada treats US dairy.
All of those issues will come to the negotiating table when the US and Canada negotiate their own new trade deal, something that will replace the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement that Trump inked during his first term but now wants to renegotiate.
Greer suggested trade deal negotiations might be separate from negotiations over the about-to-open bridge.
Trump said some kind of negotiations will start immediately
“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. We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY. With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset.”
It is possible Trump does not view Michigan’s 50 percent interest in the asset as American ownership.
Windsor, Ontario Mayor Drew Dilkens said he’s confident the bridge will open since it is already built.
“It is fully constructed and fully connected to the interstate systems on both sides of the border,” Dilkens told CNN’s Boris Sanchez on Tuesday.
The overtaxed Ambassador Bridge already handles hundreds of millions of dollars in commerce every day. To understand the importance of the trade that passes through Windsor and Detroit, consider the headaches caused to the US supply chain during the Covid-19 pandemic when Canadian truckers, angry about restrictions, shut down the Ambassador Bridge in protest.
Dilkens said construction of the Gordie Howe bridge is the culmination of a 25-year process that has involved presidents, prime ministers and governors.
He acknowledged it will take many years for Canada to recoup the billions it paid for the bridge, but after that, proceeds from tolls will be split with Michigan. Meantime, he rattled off the economic argument that led to the bridge’s construction in the first place, linking the US auto industry to Canadian parts manufacturers.
Dilkens said he hopes the US and Canada can come to a larger agreement to improve the USMCA to mutual benefit later this year, but he also said he hopes Americans see the chaos to world trade being caused by current US tariff policy.
Trade deals, he said, “have served to the benefit of putting a lot of bread on the table of US families as well as Canadian families.”
