Washington ― The Department of Homeland Security secretary confirmed this week that Customs & Border Protection staff are “good to go” to facilitate trade and travel across the newly built Gordie Howe International Bridge, once negotiations between Canada and the United States are resolved.
“We have the personnel dedicated, ready to move,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday about the Detroit River span between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.
“We’re prepared, we’re staffed, ready to go. … There’s still negotiations between Canada and the United States that’s not within DHS that has to be resolved. But we’re as far as we can go without the sign off from the bridge and the final agreement between the two countries.”
In response to questions from Sen. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, Mullin also said that the bridge contractor hasn’t signed off on “final stuff,” missing a May 1 deadline, “so we’re waiting on that to take place.”
A spokeswoman for the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority, which has overseen bridge construction, said Monday that the span is “progressing well towards a spring opening.”
“The exact opening date depends on the completion of the ongoing quality reviews and testing and commissioning activities,” WDBA spokeswoman Tara Carson told The Detroit News by email.
The Detroit News reported last week that, after eight years of construction, testing of all systems at the bridge, customs plazas and ramps connecting to Michigan and Ontario freeways could be days away from being complete, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the progress.
“Right now, everybody is excited about it ― across business, all sector’s of Michigan’s economy and the Midwest,” Peters told Mullin.
“The only person that I know, there’s one billionaire that’s against it, and that’s a person who owns a competing bridge, a private bridge that’s competing,” Peters added in a reference to Ambassador Bridge owner Matthew Moroun. “Other than that, there’s universal support.”
It wasn’t clear which negotiations Mullin was referring to regarding the U.S. and Canada, though U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra told The Detroit News a month ago that the Trump administration has yet to reach an agreement with the Canadian government regarding the opening of the Detroit River span.
“At the end of the day, the president will have to sign off on it,” Hoekstra said of an eventual agreement. “There’s a lot of issues right now between the U.S. and Canada. The bridge is one more.”
The U.S. president has demanded concessions from Canada in trade talks or a share of future toll revenue, as a condition for opening the 1.5-mile, six-lane span. And no approvals for the bridge to open to traffic will be granted by the Federal Highway Administration without the blessing of the Trump White House, sources told The News last week.
Part of the holdup, according to Hoekstra, is the fact that many of the conditions under which a 2012 agreement between Michigan and Canada haven’t materialized, with the $4.7 billion project coming in over budget, while border traffic is down.
Under the original deal, Michigan and Canada would share equal ownership of the bridge, but Michigan won’t benefit from the toll revenue until Canada pays off the debt it incurred constructing the six-lane span, customs plazas and connections to Interstate 75 in Detroit and Ontario’s 401 Highway.
But with a debt of roughly $6.4 billion in Canadian dollars and what Hoekstra has estimated to be an about 4.8% interest rate, there are questions about Canada’s ability to ever recoup its costs and, by extension, Michigan’s eventual share of revenue, Hoekstra said this spring.
Delaying the opening of the bridge in turn delays the date in the future when Canada’s investment is paid off and Michigan can start collecting its share of toll revenues, said Roy Norton, a former Canadian consul general to Detroit who was heavily involved in the 2012 deal to build the new bridge.
“The president’s action, if this persists month after month after month, has the effect of delaying the point in time in which Michigan ultimately receives its share of revenues, which is ironic and perverse,” Norton said Monday in a telephone interview with The News.
The ongoing talks between the U.S. and Canada follow Trump’s February threat to block the bridge’s opening amid trade disputes and complaints about the United States’ share of bridge ownership.
He aired a number of complaints about Canada, including its refusal to stock some U.S. alcoholic beverages on Canadian shelves, its tariffs on dairy products and its trade talks with China.
“This is just another example of President Trump putting America’s interests first, and so he made that very clear in his call with Prime Minister Carney earlier today,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said after Trump’s threat in February.
U.S. Rep. John James, a Republican who is running to be governor of Michigan, said that any deal made with Canada to open the Gordie Howe span should include assurances that Canada will aggressively work to reduce wildfire smoke that’s drifted to pollute summer vacations in Michigan.
“They’re lecturing America on climate change. They’re lecturing America on being good neighbors. They’re also failing their own due to do this exact same thing,” James said in a video on social media.
“They are throwing off 500 million vehicles’ worth of carbon emissions into our air each and every single year, and doing very little to nothing about it. That’s got to change right now.”
mburke@detroitnews.com
Staff Writer Beth LeBlanc and Politics Editor Chad Livengood contributed.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: U.S. customs ‘ready to go’ at Gordie Howe Bridge once trade talks resolved
Reporting by Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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By Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
