Gordie Howe Bridge Expected to Open Within Days, Carney Says

Prime Minister Mark Carney says the Gordie Howe International Bridge linking Ontario and Michigan will open soon, months after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to bar its opening.

“The bridge will be open by the end of the week. A symbol, but also a fact of cooperation between our countries,” Carney told reporters in Parliament on June 9.

Carney said the bridge will be “great for Canadians going across the border, Americans coming across the border, and for commerce.” He also congratulated the Canadian and American workers who built the bridge.

The $6.4 billion project will be the second bridge, after the Ambassador Bridge, connecting the cities of Windsor and Detroit. In 2012, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former Michigan Governor Rick Snyder reached an agreement on the project, and the Obama administration approved it in 2013.

Under the current agreement, tolls collected from bridge users will help reimburse the Canadian government for the funding provided to build the bridge. Once the costs have been fully recouped, half of the toll revenue will go to the state of Michigan.

The bridge is owned by the Canadian Crown corporation Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, which is composed of an equal number of representatives from Canada and Michigan.

Trump had announced on Truth Social on Feb. 9 that he would not allow the Gordie Howe Bridge between the two countries to open unless the U.S. was compensated for it. He said that former U.S. President Barack Obama had signed a deal that did not benefit the United States.

“With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset. The revenues generated because of the U.S. Market will be astronomical,” Trump wrote. The U.S. president also said that there should have been requirements to use American products, such as steel.

Carney told reporters on Feb. 10 that he had a phone call with Trump and explained that Canada had paid $4 billion to build the bridge, with ownership shared between Canada and Michigan. He also noted in the call that both Canadian and American workers and steel were used in the bridge’s construction.

Carney said he expected the situation with the bridge would be “resolved.”

Trump had supported the bridge during his first administration, saying in a joint statement with former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2017 that, “we look forward to the expeditious completion of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which will serve as a vital economic link between our two countries.”