It’s the largest cross-border infrastructure project in decades to link the United States and Canada, a new $4.5 billion bridge named after a hockey legend beloved in both nations.
But until just days ago, it wasn’t clear whether the span — complete for weeks — would open.
Back in February, President Donald Trump threatened to prevent the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, saying the U.S. was being treated unfairly.
In June, an event to inaugurate the bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, was abruptly canceled.
Now the six-lane span is set to open to traffic on Monday after the two countries signed a last-minute deal — separate from the operating agreement for the bridge.
While the project is visible proof of the ties that bind Canada and the U.S., it has also become a symbol of something else: the fraying of the bond between the two neighbors as Trump uses threats to negotiate with Canada and calls it “the 51st state.”
The rancor deepened this week after Trump said he would impose a new 50 percent tariff on many Canadian products. In response, Canada scrapped plans for a joint ceremony to mark the opening of the bridge.
“It would be inappropriate to proceed with a celebratory event between the two countries,” a spokeswoman for Canada’s infrastructure minister said in an emailed statement. Instead, the country will celebrate the milestone “among Canadians” on Friday morning.
Drew Dilkens, the mayor of Windsor, is among those invited to the ceremony. Under different circumstances, he said, the opening of a once-in-a-generation project could have seen the U.S. president and Canadian prime minister shaking hands in the middle of the bridge.
“Regretfully we aren’t doing that,” Dilkens said. “It’s hard to celebrate a relationship when the president of the United States continues to lob insults and tariffs at Canada unnecessarily.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For nearly a century, all commercial truck traffic between Detroit and Windsor has relied on the Ambassador Bridge, which opened in 1929. Last year, $94 billion in cross-border trade — about a quarter of the total truck freight between the two countries — passed over the aging bridge.
Discussions to build a new bridge began in 2002. A decade later, Canada and Michigan signed the operating agreement for the joint project. Canada agreed to fund the entire cost, and once it recouped its investment, the toll proceeds would be split equally with Michigan. The bridge would be named after Gordie Howe, a Canadian hockey great who spent 25 seasons playing for the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings.
For years, the owners of the Ambassador Bridge — the Moroun family — filed lawsuits to stall or block the building of a competitor. Described as “traffic-impaired and slowly declining” a decade ago, the Ambassador Bridge stands to lose significant toll revenue when the Gordie Howe bridge opens.
In January, billionaire Matthew Moroun donated $1 million to a political action committee supporting Trump, federal election data shows. The next month, Moroun met with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in Washington, the New York Times reported. Hours after the meeting, Trump made his threat to block the opening of the new bridge.
Still, the bridge appeared on track to open in June, and local dignitaries received invites to an inaugural event. It was called off at the last minute: Canada and the U.S. had agreed to delay the opening, Chuck Andary, the interim chief executive officer of the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, said in a statement, “to resolve any outstanding issues.”
Earlier this month, the two countries said they had reached a “parallel” agreement in principle that would allow the bridge to open. Under its terms, Canada would make payments into a U.S.-Canada economic development fund controlled by the U.S. for the next 15 years. The payments would be equivalent to half the toll proceeds, minus the operating costs of the bridge. Canada also pledged to seek U.S. consent if tolls were raised or reduced to rates that deviated from regional averages.
Trump welcomed the agreement, saying in a social media post that he had “cut a MUCH BETTER DEAL for America” and calling the original terms “unacceptable to me.” But his opposition to the bridge is a relatively recent development. During Trump’s first term, he said in a joint statement with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that he was looking forward to the “expeditious completion” of this “vital economic link.”
Dilkens, the Windsor mayor, said his community is happy the bridge is set to open on Monday. At the same time, “there is absolutely nothing that would surprise me with Donald Trump,” he said. “Until the first cars start crossing and the first trucks start rolling, anything is possible.”
Marta Leardi-Anderson heads the Cross-Border Institute at the University of Windsor and spent four years as an executive at the bridge authority until 2018. The Gordie Howe bridge will be the most technically advanced and the most secure border crossing in North America, she said.
A joint U.S.-Canada celebration, while desirable, is not essential, she added. “Ribbon cutting is not an objective,” Leardi-Anderson said. “The objective is to get the bridge open and working.”
Leardi-Anderson isn’t sure whether she will drive across the bridge first or wait until its bike and pedestrian path opens several days later. At night, when the suspension bridge is all lit up, she said, “it’s gorgeous.”
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