Tell the Media: Cover the Gordie Howe Bridge as Corruption

The Gordie Howe International Bridge — a fully completed span connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, at the busiest land crossing in North America — is sitting empty and unopened because President Trump doesn't want it open yet. A grand opening was scheduled for this month and canceled at the last minute after Trump intervened via social media, demanding Canada hand over co-ownership of a bridge it financed under an already-agreed arrangement. The economic consequences are real and growing. And the Moroun family — owners of the rival Ambassador Bridge, which benefits financially from every day the Gordie Howe stays closed — has donated millions to Republicans in recent years, including a $1 million contribution to a Trump-aligned super PAC.

Yet too much media coverage treats this as a diplomatic oddity — another wrinkle in Trump's fraught relationship with Canada. It is not. It is a textbook corruption story: a completed piece of public infrastructure being held hostage while a politically connected family with a direct financial stake in keeping it closed showers money on the president's allies.

We call on the media to cover the Gordie Howe Bridge closure not as a trade story or a Canada story, but as a corruption story — one that asks who benefits, who is paying, and why a president is blocking a completed bridge that serves millions of people on both sides of the border. The public deserves reporting that follows the money and calls what it finds by its name.