It’s taken more than 2,000 days of construction, $6.4 billion Canadian dollars and seemingly endless studies and permits to build the Gordie Howe International Bridge.

Stretching 1.5 miles between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, the towering cable-stayed span will offer an alternative to the privately owned Ambassador Bridge at one of the busiest land borders in North America, providing a boost to international traffic and trade. And it wasn’t so long ago that President Donald Trump cheered it on.

Shortly after a meeting in 2017, the man who styled himself as “the builder president” issued a joint statement with Canada’s then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau celebrating their shared focus on infrastructure. “In particular,” they said, “we look forward to the expeditious completion of the Gordie Howe International Bridge, which will serve as a vital economic link between our two countries.”

A list of 50 priority projects for emergency and national security, developed as Trump embarked on his first term in office, included the toll bridge. When the company that owns the Ambassador Bridge aired a commercial aimed at Trump in 2018, in hopes that he’d torpedo the project competing with it for tolls, the president didn’t act. His Canadian ambassador lifted a ceremonial shovel at the groundbreaking.

And in 2019, Trump signed the spending bill that allotted the first U.S. funding for the project: $15 million for inspection and screening systems. (Canada paid for the bridge project in full. The tolls will go toward recouping that investment.)

But Trump’s second term has busted all sorts of presidential norms — including his own. He now takes a more antagonistic stance toward Canada, and his ambassador in Ottawa has followed his lead. No longer does Trump speak of “the opportunity to build even more bridges” with Canadians. Instead, he used........

© ProPublica