Fact check: What Trump got wrong and left out while threatening to block the new US-Canada bridge
By Daniel Dale, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump threatened in a Monday social media post to block the opening of a major new US-Canada bridge over the Detroit River.
But Trump’s post about the Gordie Howe International Bridge included misleading claims and important omissions – even if you ignore his laughable claim that, if Prime Minister Mark Carney makes a trade deal with China, “The first thing China will do is terminate ALL Ice Hockey being played in Canada, and permanently eliminate The Stanley Cup.”
Here is a fact check of Trump’s assertions in the post. Perhaps coincidentally, some of them are similar to claims previously made by the family that owns a nearly century-old toll bridge over the same river and that has fought for years to stop the opening of the new bridge – including, in 2018, by running an ad on a Fox News morning show Trump was known to watch.
Trump endorsed the new bridge during his first presidency
After delivering a series of criticisms of the Gordie Howe bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, which has been expected to open early this year, Trump wrote in the Monday post: “Now, the Canadian Government expects me, as President of the United States, to PERMIT them to just ‘take advantage of America!’”
If Canada expected him to support the bridge now, that might be because he already endorsed it.
Trump didn’t mention in the Monday post that in February 2017, early in his first presidency, he issued a joint statement with then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in which they said: “Given our shared focus on infrastructure investments, we will encourage opportunities for companies in both countries to create jobs through those investments. In particular, we look forward to the expeditious completion of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which will serve as a vital economic link between our two countries.”
Jeff Watson, who represented part of the Windsor area as a Conservative member of Parliament from 2004 to 2015, said in a message to CNN on Tuesday: “The absurdity is Trump 1.0 takes no issue with the arrangement, wants the construction expedited, while Trump 2.0 now wants to use it as leverage in a trade war he started.”
The bridge is already jointly owned by Michigan and Canada
Trump wrote: “With all that we have given them, we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset.” But the ownership of the bridge is already split between the state of Michigan and Canada – as government documents show, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s office and Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens confirmed to CNN on Tuesday, Carney told reporters, and Republican former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder wrote in a Tuesday op-ed.
Snyder, writing in The Detroit News, quoted Trump’s musing about how “we should own, perhaps, at least one half of this asset,” then responded: “We do already!” He wrote, “Canada and the state of Michigan are 50/50 owners of the new bridge.”
Canada paid for the entire construction of the bridge
Trump wrote, “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.”
He didn’t make it clear whether he was demanding compensation over the bridge project or over some other unspecified thing “we have given them.” But given that he didn’t specify, it’s worth explaining that Canada paid the entire multi-billion-dollar cost of constructing the bridge after Michigan state lawmakers balked at contributing.
Canada plans to recover its costs through revenue from tolls. After it is repaid, subsequent toll revenue is to be split between Canada and Michigan.
Canadian officials and Michigan’s Republican former governor say US steel was used
Trump wrote in his post that Canada built the bridge “with virtually no U.S. content,” adding, “President Barack Hussein Obama stupidly gave them a waiver so they could get around the BUY AMERICAN Act, and not use any American products, including our Steel.”
The Obama administration said in 2012 that it was supporting the Buy America waiver, to allow the use of Canadian iron and steel “so long as American iron and steel is allowed to compete on an equal basis,” out of a “basic notion of fairness” – because the project was a “unique circumstance…under which Canada is assuming all financial liability and risk for the construction.”
Bloomberg reported in 2018 that the steel would “primarily” be sourced from Canada – but there is no apparent basis for a claim that American steel was completely excluded. Snyder, Carney, Dilkens and Ontario Premier Doug Ford all said Tuesday that US steel was used.
Dilkens wrote on social media platform X: “Thousands of U.S. workers helped construct the bridge, port of entry and Michigan connections on the U.S. side, where lots of U.S. steel was used.” He added in an email to CNN: “US steel was specifically used for construction of the Michigan side of the river and for the US Port of Entry customs facility.”
Snyder, similarly, wrote in his op-ed that Trump’s claim “is incorrect,” since “the U.S. customs plaza and the Michigan-side approach to work have been built with U.S. materials and workers, just as the Canadian equivalents have been built with Canadian resources.”
Carney told reporters that he explained to Trump in a call on Tuesday that “in the construction of the bridge obviously there’s Canadian steel, Canadian workers, but also US steel, US workers that were involved.” And Ford told reporters: “Seventy-five percent, yes, were Canadian steel and concrete, because we’re paying for it; 25% was US steel and concrete. Then the interchange going on from the Michigan side, it was all American workers, all American steel, all American concrete. So again, there’s fiction, what President Trump says, and then there’s true facts that people can look up.”
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