Is Canada Building a Bridge Too Far?

A new front in Donald Trump's trade wars could be the Detroit River and the bridge across it. Opened in 1929, the Ambassador Bridge is a critical trade artery linking the US and Canada. About $100 billion in commerce crosses it annually, a figure just shy of US trade with the UK. Now the fight to replace the aging span has reached the Oval Office. Both the Canadian government and the bridge's private US owners, the Moroun family, plan to build rival bridges not far from where the Ambassador connects downtown Detroit with Windsor, Ont. The race has been marked by bad blood and court battles, spanning successive governments in the US and Canada. Traffic across the Ambassador has fallen 44% since 2000. The Morouns nonetheless say they're ready to start building this summer. But the Morouns say Canada is sabotaging them with a poison pill included in the terms to approve the their new bridge: a requirement to tear down the old Ambassador.