John Ivison: Trump’s Gordie Howe victory lap is the model for making deals with him

The Gordie Howe International Bridge seen from Windsor, Ont., on Monday, July 13, 2026. Photo by Dan Janisse/Windsor Star/Postmedia

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Friday is always a good day to bury bad news, to borrow the unfortunate phraseology used by a British political advisor on 9/11.

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The unintended consequence is that anything released by governments on the last workday of the week is automatically considered suspect. Thus, the convulsions that accompanied Ottawa’s announcement late Friday that the Gordie Howe is set to open on July 27th, following the agreement of “cooperative measures focused on toll governance, including the establishment of a 15-year economic development fund tied to a portion of profits from bridge operations.”

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The suspicion was that the Trump administration had shaken down the Carney government and secured a half share of toll revenues, even though Canadian governments paid the upfront $6.4-billion cost of the bridge.

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The president did little to allay such fears, posting on social media that the original crossing agreement, which provided for “surplus” revenues to be divided equally only after Canada recovered its costs, was not acceptable to him. “I was able to cut a MUCH BETTER DEAL for America,” he wrote.

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On Sunday, the Conservative Canada-U.S. trade critic, Shuvaloy Majumdar, wrote to his Liberal counterpart, Dominic LeBlanc, saying Prime Minister Mark Carney has “negotiated a terrible deal for Canada.”

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“We took the risk and the cost. We deserve to recover our money,” he said — and it’s hard to argue with that.

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Except, it is far from clear that’s what has happened. Carney was badgered at the Calgary Stampede by CTV and said the deal does indeed involve the payment of half the “net profits” to Michigan. “But the word ‘net’ does a lot of work… We get the revenues, the servicing of the cost of the bridge and paying the debt. What’s left over, there’s a split of that for 15 years,” he said. “There’s not going to be a lot of ‘net’ to split. It’s a good deal for Canada.”

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Majumdar is right to ask for more transparency. “What precisely will be divided?” he asked, “Gross toll revenues, operating profit, net profit after expenses or revenues after Canada has fully recovered its investment?”

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What’s clear is that, as long as the toll revenues are not given up, there is unlikely to be much profit to redistribute over the next 15 years.

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The estimate for traffic is that 9.6 million vehicles will cross the bridge in any given year, around 45 per cent of which will be commercial. Given the set tolls of $8 per car and $12 per truck, that generates around $93 million in revenue. We don’t know the rates at which the federal and Ontario governments borrowed, but for argument’s sake, a triple A-rated government would pay between $192 million and $307 million in interest on a capital cost of $6.4 billion. It’s hard to see where the “net profits” come from.

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On the other hand, the bridge will facilitate an estimated $1.9 trillion of trade. It is in the national interest to get the thing open as soon as possible.

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One Canadian trade official close to the current CUSMA negotiations said this offers a blueprint on how to deal with Trump: let him claim victory but stand up to him on the substance. “As I understand it, the White House blinked. They wanted a share of revenues,” the official said.