Canada marks the opening of the Gordie Howe Bridge without the US after the trade war escalated | Stories of Trade Wars

Canada marked the opening of a bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, and Detroit, Michigan in a quiet celebration without US officials after a dispute over revenue sharing and new threats of 50 percent tariffs from US President Donald Trump strained relations between the two countries.

Canada canceled a ribbon-cutting ceremony across the border of the Gordie Howe International Bridge and Friday’s landmark opening was celebrated among Canadians earlier. The bridge opens to traffic on Monday.

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Among tables of fruit cups, cakes and children playing hockey – a tribute to the Canadian hockey player Detroit Red Wings after whom the bridge is named – Canadian officials gathered to witness the opening of the bridge and invited guests, including Howe’s family. Attendees were encouraged to wear the national colors of red and white “to show Canadian pride” and were prohibited from crossing to the US side of the bridge.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Canada’s relationship with the US has been strained by Trump’s tariffs, but the bridge is “an example of what we can achieve when our two great countries work together”. Wearing a red Team Canada hockey jersey with Howe’s number 9, Ford said Ontario would never return to the US.

“Canadians and Americans are better off when we work together instead of apart,” Ford said.

What could have been a happy moment between the longtime allies was overshadowed trade negotiations and Trump’s threat on Monday to impose more tariffs on Canada, which exports 70 percent of its goods to the US, including smoke from Canadian fires that spread to other parts of the US.

Competing bridges

The $4.7bn bridge was paid for by Canada and was supposed to open in June after construction in 2018. It is meant to be a faster route than the existing Ambassador Bridge across the Detroit River.

Trumpet threatened to cancel the project in February, criticizing the Canadian provinces’ refusal to sell alcohol to the US, the Canadian tariff on American dairy products and the country’s trade negotiations with China.

Weeks before that, in January, Matthew Moroun, a truck driver from Detroit whose family has worked on the Ambassador Bridge for years, donated $1m to a Trump campaign committee (PAC), according to The New York Times, which cited financial records. Moroun has been critical of the new bridge as it would reduce traffic, and money, on the Ambassador Bridge.

The White House and PAC have previously denied any connection between the donation and Trump’s threat to close the new bridge.

There still seems to be disagreement between the two countries over how the money for the bridge will be distributed and when. The Canadian government says 274 million Canadian dollars ($194m) in trade a day flows between Windsor and Detroit.

Mr Trump said it was “good” that Canada “outed” the US in the opening of the bridge.

“The original deal on the Bridge, which was badly negotiated by the previous Administration, no longer stands,” Trump said in a tweet on Truth Social on Friday. “We changed the terms of the deal so that the United States of America now gets 50% of the profits.”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his country would only share the money after the refund, but according to the agreement released on Wednesday, Canada will share the bridge and the money related to the crossing with the US for the first 15 years, without guaranteeing that it will be paid first.

Carney addressed the disagreement at a press conference on Thursday, saying that the previous agreement between Canada and Michigan is still in place and “there is no sharing of tolls under this agreement until all debt is repaid”.

No country has publicly stated what the amount will be.

The new agreement appears to contradict the agreement signed by Canada and the US in 2012, which Carney had proposed, said Nicolas Lamp, an associate professor and lawyer at Queen’s University’s Institute on Trade Policy.

“The US can talk about a new deal that says they’ll get half of the money, while Canada can say it’s against the original deal,” Lamp said. “It is not clear that either side can save face and claim victory.”

Don Abelson, chair of political science in Canada-US relations at McMaster University, said the biggest win was simply opening the bridge and installing Trump.

“Recovery of the billions of dollars spent on this bridge is very important, but nothing is more important than the trade relationship between Canada and the US,” he said.