Like upturned hockey sticks in the windup to a slap shot, the towers holding up the newest U.S.-Canada international crossing reflect a legacy shared by the two countries. The Gordie Howe International Bridge, named for a Canadian hockey star who made his career with the Detroit Red Wings, is now open between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.
But, as in an actual hockey game, the two sides of this mutually beneficial $4.7 billion bridge are scuffling over its control. For months, the bridge has been the lightning rod for diplomatic tensions between President Donald Trump and Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, who have turned the bridge’s financing, operations, and even its opening date into points of contention.
Designed as a symbol of collaboration and shared interests between the two countries, the 1.5-mile (2.4-kilometer) bridge now highlights their divisions.
Delays and conflict
The bridge adds a crucial transportation option to the busiest trade corridor between the U.S. and Canada. An estimated $300 million worth of commerce flows between the two sides every day, including a significant amount of material related to the region’s automotive industry, which spans the border.
Before the Gordie Howe International Bridge, many of those goods moved across the Ambassador Bridge, which sits 2 miles away and also connects Detroit and Windsor. The owners of the Ambassador Bridge, the Moroun family, had opposed the new crossing since studies for it began in 2001. Work officially started on the project in 2013, and building has been underway since 2018. After several delays and a COVID-related slowdown in work, construction was completed in late 2025.
Then more delays arrived. In February, with the bridge nearly ready to open, the family leader, Matthew Moroun, met with the U.S. commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick. Hours later, Trump threatened to block the opening of the bridge.
Canada—which fully funded the Howe bridge and shares ownership of it with the state of Michigan—pushed back, if gently. Carney said shortly after that “the situation will be settled.”
Tensions subsided, and the bridge’s opening was loosely planned for the summer. Then Trump complained about the financial details. Under the original agreement, dating to 2012, Canada would split the toll revenue with the state of Michigan, but only after recouping the bridge costs. Trump blasted that arrangement, calling for more money to flow to the U.S.
Under a new deal signed in mid-July, half of the bridge’s net revenue for the first 15 years will be placed in an economic development fund controlled by the U.S., appeasing Trump. Both sides seemed to be content and set a grand opening date for the bridge on July 27.
But then, Trump announced 50% tariffs on Canadian goods, further inflaming the relationship. Canada responded by disinviting the U.S. from the grand opening festivities and reframed them as a “Canadian celebration.”
The Gordie Howe Bridge finally opens
Despite the conflict, the Gordie Howe International Bridge is now open to traffic.
Designed by AECOM, a Dallas-based infrastructure consulting firm, the bridge is cable-stayed, which means its road surface hangs from the two towers on either end. Composed of 216 long cables, it is now the longest cable-stayed bridge span in the U.S., stretching nearly 2,800 feet (853 meters). Those hockey stick towers, shaped like inverted Ys, rise 722 feet.
There’s a reason for the bridge’s scale. Because the towers are anchored on land, they “avoid major disruptions to the fish habitat in the Detroit River,” according to Grant Hilbers, chief capital officer of the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, and allow “uninterrupted marine traffic on one of the busiest commercial waterways in the world.”
But the biggest design move may just be one of the bridge’s smaller elements.
On the eastern edge of the bridge, a nearly 12-foot-wide space has been set beside the traffic lanes to create a multiuse path for pedestrian and cyclist crossing. It’s one of only a few international bridges between the two countries to have a pedestrian pathway, and the first in Detroit since the pedestrian path on the Ambassador Bridge was closed after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
A coup for cyclist groups in Michigan and Ontario, which had lobbied for the path since 2015, the pathway will offer a unique way for people to cross the border.
And for those hoping to steer clear of the financial conflicts the bridge has spurred between the U.S. and Canada, people using the shared pathway will be allowed to cross the bridge toll free.