The Detroit River has seen it all—and I’m not talking about industrial waste and sewage.
The wisp of water that connects Lake St. Clair to Lake Erie and separates Detroit, Michigan, from Windsor, Ontario, has been an incubator of human emotion.
Hope and elation gave way to desperation and despair, which in turn birthed nostalgia and acceptance.
But these days, along that river, if you listen closely enough, you just might hear whispers of optimism again.
It starts with the subtle, like when a graph of population estimates has a positive slope.
Then comes the more obvious, like new housing.
Finally comes the blatant—say a $4.7-billion, 1.5-mile, cable-stayed bridge over the Detroit River, a much-needed complement to the almost-100-year-old Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.
The new structure, officially opened on July 27, 2026, is called the Gordie Howe International Bridge, a shout out to the legendary Canadian hockey player who spent most of his career playing for the Detroit Red Wings.
In true collaborative fashion—the type that would be expected among fast friends—ownership is shared by the Canadian government and the state of Michigan.
Fully funded by the Canadians, the plan has been for those north of the border to recoup the costs through toll revenue. Once that goal is met, toll revenues will thereafter be split between Canada and Michigan.
Six lanes of traffic, a dedicated multi-use path for pedestrians and cyclists, a marker of friendship, and a symbol of economic vitality—for a Rust Belt obsessive, it’s the stuff dreams are made of.
And then there’s Donald Trump.
The man who is unable to find meaning in life in the absence of conflict opted to manufacture some.
Trump’s buddy and donor, Matthew Moroun, happens to own the Ambassador Bridge and was opposed to the construction of a competitor.
In early 2026, shortly after Moroun donated $1 million to a Trump-aligned PAC, the President threatened to block the opening of the bridge.
And then, he started negotiating, aka extorting.
Claiming the aforementioned deal was somehow unfair, Trump coerced the Canadians into a parallel deal, one that gives an economic development fund controlled by the US government half the bridge’s net revenue for the first 15 years. (Whether Moroun will benefit from this fund is purely speculative.)
Just for kicks, a week before the bridge was to open, Trump announced 50% tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods. In response, the Canadians disinvited Americans from a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Of course, the argument could be made that this is the dream, the kind where The Godfather is more than mere art.
Let’s just hope that with tolls involved, no one goes the way of Sonny Corleone.
