It would seem there’s a bit more to the story of Trump & the bridge than I had envisioned, according to The New York Times:
The billionaire owner of a bridge connecting Michigan with Canada met Howard Lutnick, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, on Monday hours before President Trump lambasted a competing span, in the latest flashpoint in the deteriorating relationship between the United States and Canada.
Matthew Moroun is a Detroit-based trucking magnate whose family has operated the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, for decades. He met on Monday with Mr. Lutnick in Washington, according to two officials briefed on the meeting who requested anonymity to discuss a private conversation.
After that meeting Mr. Lutnick spoke with Mr. Trump by phone about the matter, the officials said.
Well. President Trump as hit-man, eh?
To play devil’s advocate, I’ll also note this:
The new bridge was fully paid for by Canada but is owned in part by Michigan, and is expected to ease congestion in the busiest trade corridor between the United States and Canada.
There is something to be said about private vs public competition, although I must say the situation is rarely as clean as a libertarian, who will emphasize the vast public resources available to the state, make for unfair competition, might have you believe. I did a bit of research on the privately owned entity, the Ambassador Bridge, in Wikipedia, which claims the bridge’s condition is, oh, I don’t know, let’s say marginal and getting worse. However, it also notes the various permissions to repair the bridge have been difficult-to-impossible to obtain, again, my words. It may be that both public and private have dirty hands, but that’s for other researchers to debate.
All that said, the state, err, states in this case, have a possibly critical interest in a dependable and speedy transport link over the Detroit River; if the Ambassador were to collapse, replacement would take years. Yes, I know the I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge, which replaced the collapsed I-35W Mississippi River Bridge, took roughly 13 months to complete, but managers who bank on setting construction records rarely have good outcomes, and this would be a far larger project. Canada and Michigan might justify the construction of the Gordie Howe International Bridge on these concerns alone, and have a good case.
And to learn the Ambassador Bridge was once owned by a public company, before the Morouns bought it up!
