The Gordie Howe Bridge deal isn't simply politics as usual. It's about Trump's distorted vision of power

The U.S. president sees everything as a transaction that he must win.

The latest agreement between our government and the Trump administration to allow the opening of the Gordie Howe bridge that links Windsor and Detroit is just the latest in a long saga. After much delay and dithering, the bridge was scheduled to be open for business on June 15, 2026, after a planned ribbon cutting on June 12. The plan to open was shelved on June 11.

Scissors down, elbows back up. A new deal has been patched together, and now the start date is July 27, 2026. So now we are back to elbows down and find the ribbon cutters.

To understand what is happening, we have to go back to a terrible decision in the 1920s by both the U.S. and Canadian governments to pass laws allowing for a monopoly to be granted to a private company to build and run a toll bridge spanning the Detroit River. The original owner of the project, Joseph Bower, went bankrupt during the Depression, and the company then went public. The Ambassador Bridge, as it has been known for many years, was hugely profitable, and was eventually controlled by the Maroun family, who have since taken full advantage of their control over a lucrative choke point in controlling trade between the two countries.

In its own way, it’s a parallel with the Strait of Hormuz. Efforts by both governments to work out a more reasonable arrangement were always rejected by both the past and current generations of the Maroun family, who are to this day shrewd lobbyists and keen litigators. Millions were spent on court proceedings on both sides of the border, as governments in the early part of the twentieth century finally realized that there had to be a better way to allow trucks and cars to cross a border point where hundreds of billions of dollars worth of trade happens every year.

In 2004, the Paul Martin-led federal government proposed a second, publicly owned bridge, and Stephen Harper’s government continued with this plan, eventually working out a deal in 2012 where Canada would build and operate the project, collect the tolls that would allow us to get our money back and thereafter share the proceeds with the governments of Michigan and the United States. This is the deal to which the American government agreed. It was a creative and fair solution to a problem that couldn’t be allowed to continue.

The Bridge was officially named after Gordie Howe, one of Canada’s greatest hockey heroes, who played for many years for the Detroit Red Wings, a decision that was announced just before his death. Gordie was renowned for his “elbows up” approach to the game. I can remember watching him play on our black and white television on Saturday nights.

The construction of the bridge was delayed because of constant lawsuits by the owners of the Ambassador Bridge. That meant that the cost of the project continued to go up — finally costing $5.6 billion — and the opening was delayed. Construction took more than ten years.

Who is now causing the delay in the opening of the bridge? Surprise, surprise, President Donald Trump didn’t like the deal. He wants Canada to hand over more money, and sooner — and has used the leverage of the moment to extract cash out of Canadian taxpayers.

American Ambassador Pete Hoekstra says that “politics has nothing to do with this,” and I actually agree with him. This is not about politics as we have often understood it. We are only talking about money and power.

Since for the president everything is a transaction, he sees this as yet another opportunity to “make a better deal,” even if it means changing the terms of an agreement after it’s been made. As the president places no value on the relationship with Canada, treating us like Putin looks at Belarus, he is exercising leverage — or in other words, a shakedown. If these delays happen to ensure cash flow to the private monopoly, so be it.

Just a coincidence. Another coincidence: Stratford audiences attending Anthony Cimolino’s last season as festival director are laughing in the aisles at the great Frank Loesser musical “Guys and Dolls.” In the play, Big Jule prefers to play with invisible dice because he can always decide who wins and loses.

Someone should write a musical about the saga of the bridges between Detroit and Windsor. The chicanery and self dealing would be there for all to see. But as in “Guys and Dolls,” the invisible dice are loaded.

And the price has been paid by Canadian workers in lost jobs and lost opportunities, and by Canadian taxpayers who are paying interest on a vital asset that we borrowed money to build, on the premise that the cash flow from tolls would pay down the debt. In refusing to renew CUSMA, and with the tactics regarding the bridge opening in which new conditions and money were attached, Mr. Trump is telling Canadians how he thinks the game has to be played. In his Davos Speech, Mark Carney told the world that the old order was gone, and we were now living in the age of “rupture.”

The saga of the bridges is open proof of that. And therein lies the challenge. We are told by Steven Miller that the exercise of raw power is the only rule that matters.

That is the view expressed clearly in the December U.S. National Security Review where the meaning of “Only America First” is laid out clearly for the world to see It isn’t pretty. Those of us who warned that this was deadly serious, and unlike anything we have seen since Franklin Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, were encouraged to keep whistling past the grave yard. “Nothing to see here, just a little throat clearing,” was the reaction among some.

But the prime minister is right when he reminds us that “nostalgia is not a strategy.” The necessary elements of a Canadian response are becoming clearer, and we need to keep building stronger alliances with our American friends — and we do have them — as well as with other countries who, like us, need to wake up to the fact that we are dealing with a very different U.S administration, and a president who no longer has guardrails or handlers, but only amplifiers.