No deal yet on Gordie Howe bridge opening, ambassador to Canada says

LANSING, Mich. - The U.S. ambassador to Canada said Tuesday that the Trump administration has yet to reach an agreement with the Canadian government regarding the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, but insisted "this will get worked out."

Pete Hoekstra, Trump's ambassador to Canada and a former Michigan congressman, was in Lansing on Tuesday to give an update on negotiations over the six-lane, 1.5-mile Detroit River span to Republican House Speaker Matt Hall and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Hoekstra said discussions with the Canadian government have been regular and positive, but have not yet resulted in a final agreement. He did not have an estimated opening date for the bridge, which had been scheduled to open to cross-border traffic this spring.

"At the end of the day, the president will have to sign off on it," Hoekstra said of an eventual agreement. "There's a lot of issues right now between the U.S. and Canada. The bridge is one more."

As of last week, officials with the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority said they still expected a spring opening. But they have not committed to a specific date.

The hold up, Hoekstra said, is the fact that many of the conditions under which the agreement was made haven't materialized. The project came in "massively overbudget" - about $6.4 billion Canadian dollars ($4.7 billion U.S. dollars) - and border traffic is down, Hoekstra said.

The state's 2012 agreement with Canada, entered into under Republican former Gov. Rick Snyder, required Canada to fully front the construction costs and then recoup them through tolls until its debt was paid off. At that point, Michigan would get half of the toll revenues.

But with a debt of roughly $6.4 billion, which likely has grown since last year, and what Hoekstra estimated to be an about 4.8% interest rate, there are questions about Canada's ability to ever recoup its costs and, by extension, Michigan's eventual ownership of it.

"I don't think that bridge is going to generate that," Hoekstra said. "We're not obligated for the money. But we also know we're at a position where the agreement said that, at some point in time, the bridge would be paid back and Michigan would have half the bridge and half the revenues. There's questions about whether that will ever happen."

In 2012, Michigan and Canadian officials estimated it would take 30 years of toll revenue to repay Canada's treasury, but the repayment period has increased by an unknown number of years due to inflationary costs and declining traffic at the Detroit-Windsor border. One former Canadian diplomat has estimated it could take as many as 70 years for Canada to recoup its costs.

The ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Canada follow President Donald Trump's February threat to block the bridge's opening amid trade disputes and complaints about the United States' share of bridge ownership. The 2012 deal forged by Snyder established joint ownership of the new bridge between Canada and Michigan, not the U.S. government.

"I will not allow this bridge to open until the United States is fully compensated for everything we have given them, and also, importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve," Trump wrote. "We will start negotiations, IMMEDIATELY."

"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's commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, reportedly met with Matthew Moroun, the billionaire trucking mogul whose family owns the Ambassador Bridge, before the social media post threatening the opening of the bridge.

In March, the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority announced toll rates at the Gordie Howe bridge that would be half of what commercial trucks are charged to cross the Morouns' Ambassador Bridge, setting the stage for a potential toll war at the Michigan-Ontario border.

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This story was originally published April 28, 2026 at 5:39 PM.