Beginning next Sunday, Midwesterners driving to Canada finally should have an alternative to the privately owned Ambassador Bridge, notorious for its delays, poor maintenance and costly tolls. Behold the new Gordie Howe International Bridge, replete with six traffic lanes, 16 toll lanes and 60 inspection bays and offering a direct connection between Michigan’s I-75 and Ontario’s Highway 401 without dropping off border crossers in traffic-clogged Windsor, Ontario.
This would have happened months ago without the interference of President Donald Trump, who has used the bridge, which was paid for by Canada but will be owned equally by Canada and the state of Michigan, as a bargaining chip for various sorts of ridiculousness from trade policy disagreements to cronyism to, this week, his views on Canada’s management of wildfires, which is open to debate but has nothing whatsoever to do with a bridge across the Detroit River.
More nefariously, the various delays and political rhetoric surrounding the bridge, the construction of which began eight years ago last Friday, suggest that Trump has been focused on protecting the economic interest of the owner of the old bridge, the family of the late Grosse Pointe, Michigan, billionaire Manuel Moroun, who died in 2020. The family operates through the Detroit International Bridge Co. and makes bank both from the tolls and from duty-free sales. The late Moroun himself fought hard against the new bridge; Matthew Moroun, Manuel Moroun’s billionaire son, is a major Trump donor.
It’s never easy when new competition arrives for any business. But instead of engaging in partisan protectionism, Trump should have been hailing the benefits of more options for truckers and drivers, motivating the existing parties (the nearby Detroit-Windsor Tunnel is jointly owned by the cities of Detroit and Windsor) to provide better and cheaper service for a corridor especially vital to the auto industry.
On Thursday, the mayor of Windsor said he suspected a deal had been made behind the scenes in order to get the long-delayed bridge open, one that would result in a sale to a regional bridge authority that could run both bridges. The older bridge dumps drivers, as we know from experience, onto a crowded Windsor street at first; heading straight for a freeway likely will be more attractive, especially for truckers.
Canadian politicians have been demanding more transparency about a deal that seems also to oblige the Canadian side to (according to a Canadian governmental statement) “work collaboratively with the government of the United States on toll-rate adjustments, seeking concurrence for certain non-market related toll changes.”
Hmm. We struggle to understand exactly what “certain non-market related toll changes” means and hope it’s not mere protectionism to help Trump’s donor. We’ll hardly be surprised if that is the case.
Time will tell. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney also said Thursday that his country has no plans to share revenue with the United States until the cost of the bridge has been paid off; that seems perfectly reasonable to us, given that Canada spent some $6.4 billion in Canadian dollars to build the thing. Thereafter both countries will split the net toll revenue, which seems like a good deal, especially since Carney told reporters that the deal required the money to be spent for “regional economic development on the Michigan side,” some knock-on benefit of which also accrues to Canada.
So, to our minds, there is no problem here unless you are part of the Moroun family and seeing the end of a very good thing. That family, of course, should either sell or focus on making its own operation more competitive. Trump should show up on July 26 and herald this grand new bridge, paid for by Canada.
Then let the traffic flow unimpeded for the benefit of both nations.
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