Despite the best efforts of President Donald Trump, the Gordie Howe International Bridge spanning Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, will open on July 27, the government of Canada announced on Friday evening.

The soaring 6.4 billion Canadian-dollar ($4.5 billion) structure has reshaped the skylines of the two border cities, between which roughly $300 million in trade flows each day. It is also precisely the kind of large infrastructure project Prime Minister Mark Carney has championed as a bulwark against the economic damage caused by Trump’s trade war with Canada.

Officials in Canada and the United States said Friday that the two countries had reached a deal about how tolls would be distributed, allowing the bridge to finally open.

“Thank you and congratulations to the Canadian Government,” Trump said in a social media post on Friday night. “May we both have many years of success with this wonderful new development!!!”

The bridge was largely finished early this year, nearly 13 years after Canada and Michigan signed an agreement that allowed construction to begin — a timeline stretched by pandemic-related delays.

In February, Trump said in a rambling social media post that he intended to block the bridge’s opening. A ceremony scheduled for early June was called off after invitations had already gone out, and the Trump administration spent the months that followed his first post offering shifting explanations for the president’s opposition.

Trump’s initial post came hours after Matthew Moroun, the billionaire scion of the family that has owned the Ambassador Bridge upstream from the Gordie Howe Bridge since 1979, met in Washington with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, The New York Times reported. Less than a month before that meeting, Moroun had donated $1 million to a super political action committee supporting the president.

Trump’s early objections included a desire to punish Canada for what he described as its exploitation of the American economy and its renewed trade ties with China. He also falsely claimed that no American workers or steel had been used in the bridge’s construction.

Then Pete Hoekstra, the United States ambassador to Canada, indicated that the Trump administration was upset about the toll arrangement worked out by Canada and Michigan in 2012.

Canada bore the full cost of construction, and the bridge is jointly owned by Canada and Michigan. Under the original agreement, once tolls recover the construction costs, perhaps 50 years from now, the two governments would split any revenue not needed for maintenance and operations.

Hoekstra, who also falsely claimed that it was a “hoax” that Canada paid for the bridge, later suggested that the United States was looking for a way for Michigan to see revenue from the bridge sooner.

Under the new agreement, the Canadian official said, half of the tolls, after deducting operating expenses, will go into a regional economic development fund for the first 15 years of operation. A U.S. official said the money will be collected by the United States government and the development fund will only be available to Americans. The United States will also have to approve toll increases beyond 10%, a U.S. official said. Previously, tolls were to be managed by an authority composed of representatives of Canada and Michigan.

Michigan’s government was initially cool to the federal intervention on tolls, though its position has since softened.

“It’s good for Michigan workers and it’s good for Michigan’s auto industry,” Stacey LaRouche, the press secretary for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, said in a statement last month. “This project has been a tremendous example of bipartisan and international cooperation.”

On Friday, Whitmer welcomed the end of the saga.

“The Gordie Howe International Bridge has always been a great deal for our state,” she said in a statement. “I’m proud to have fought for its opening and congratulate my partners who have worked on this issue alongside me for years.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Ian Austen/Tyler Pager/Ian Willms

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