Carney defends bridge deal as Canada opens Gordie Howe span solo

Bridge faces criticism amid tariff dispute

The Gordie Howe International Bridge, a six-lane crossing connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, opened Friday after eight years of construction. Canadian officials had planned a joint inauguration with U.S. counterparts, but they disinvited the American delegation after President Donald Trump announced a 50% tariff on most Canadian goods.

Canada agreed nearly 15 years ago to fully finance the bridge’s construction — at a cost of C$6.4 billion ($4.5 billion) — to bypass U.S. political resistance and get the project, seen as necessary infrastructure to relieve a trade bottleneck, moving. The span will support more than C$1 billion ($710 million) worth of goods that cross the Windsor-Detroit corridor each day. Under the original arrangement, Canada agreed to share toll revenue with Michigan only after its construction costs were recovered.

The project faced early pushback from the Moroun family of Michigan, which owns the neighboring Ambassador Bridge, the busiest commercial border crossing in North America and one of the few privately owned. Billionaire Matthew Maroun, a Trump donor, met with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick hours before Trump in early 2026 said he would block the bridge’s opening unless Canada agreed to “share authority” and ownership, according to a New York Times report.

In June, with the bridge completed but not yet open, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada had agreed to a U.S. request to delay the ribbon-cutting for further negotiations. Keen to get the vital trade link operating, Ottawa accepted a new revenue-sharing deal: half of the bridge’s toll revenues for the next 15 years will go to an economic development fund “solely controlled” by the U.S. government. Trump touted the agreement in a social media post as “MUCH BETTER” for America.

The controversy has placed Carney under political pressure at home. While running for prime minister, he vowed to take an “elbows up” approach — referencing the combative hockey style of the bridge’s namesake, Gordie Howe — in dealing with Trump. Now, critics say he has made too many concessions.

Conservative member of Parliament Shuvaloy Majumdar said the situation demonstrates that Canada has been negotiating “with weakness.” At a news conference he said, “Canadians are sick and tired of being made into a punching bag by President Trump and have the self-respect to fight for their existence and their country. They deserve a government that is willing to do the same thing.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has called Trump a “bully,” praised Carney for doing “an excellent job of getting this deal done.” But other provincial leaders have taken a different line. Alberta’s Danielle Smith and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe are urging restraint, revealing cracks in Canada’s unified approach to the U.S.

Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat now at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said the White House’s approach has been unpredictable. “They renege on deals. They don’t follow agreements. It’s like dealing with pirates,” he told the BBC.

Carney has also faced scrutiny over the lack of clarity around the new bridge deal. On Thursday, he said the underlying agreement on recouping toll revenues between Canada and Michigan remains in place, and that the new revenue-sharing deal with the White House is “in parallel” to that.

Robertson said the concession was necessary given the bridge’s importance to supply chains. “This new state-of-the-art bridge was done at a great expense, and yes we paid, but it is necessary to keep supply chains intact,” he said. He added that further concessions would be problematic: “Any further concessions would be problematic and probably not in our interest, given the behaviour of the Trump administration up to now.”