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00:00This is a story about what could have been and what could be once again.
00:04Bridges connect places and people.
00:07The Ambassador Bridge has joined Windsor, Ontario with Detroit, Michigan since the 1920s,
00:13long representing the close ties between two great economies.
00:17A new and improved version of the bridge was meant to draw those economies even closer.
00:22But instead, it has become a symbol of differences and disputes,
00:26of connections once strong that are now fraying or broken.
00:31After 25 years of planning and eight years of construction,
00:35the Gordie Howe Bridge opened to traffic in July.
00:38This achievement, having one of the most fluid and secure,
00:42high-volume border crossings in the world,
00:45is a testament to the long-standing partnership
00:48between Canada, the United States, and the state of Michigan.
00:53There's just one problem.
00:55The opening ceremony for the bridge that connects Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario
00:59was at first delayed and ultimately attended only by Canadian officials.
01:04The result of President Trump's displeasure with the bridge
01:07and even more with the economic relations between the two countries.
01:11I mean, in all fairness to them, they need us to survive.
01:15I don't believe in escalating the conflict.
01:17That's not constructive.
01:18But our tariffs are necessary to protect our workers,
01:23protect our companies, and our communities.
01:25We can't let American goods into Canada tariff-free
01:29while they charge our companies to export them.
01:32The new bridge over the Detroit River is named for Gordie Howe,
01:36known as Mr. Hockey, the man from Saskatoon, Canada,
01:40who spent much of his career on the other side of the border
01:43as the star of the Detroit Red Wings.
01:46Gordie Howe was probably the greatest hockey player of his day,
01:52and some say of all time.
01:54The bridge's namesake was for Canadians and Americans,
01:58a man who symbolized both countries and cultures
02:00and the things they had in common.
02:03Roy McSkimming is the author of Gordie, a Hockey Legend.
02:07He won six league scoring championships.
02:11He was named Most Valuable Player six times.
02:14He led the Detroit Red Wings to four Stanley Cups in a row,
02:17and he had an incredibly long-lasting career.
02:21He retired twice and did not retire permanently
02:25until he was 52 and a grandfather.
02:29Gordie Howe became someone both Canadians and Americans
02:33claimed as one of their own.
02:34So it made sense when the new bridge was named for him in 2015
02:39to reflect the joint commitment of both countries
02:42to their relationship in trade, in business, and in much more.
02:46Canada and the U.S. are tightly linked in terms of trade,
02:50have been now for decades,
02:53and so a huge amount of business investment
02:56has been made that ties those two economies together.
03:01Michael Belzer is a visiting professor at Cornell University
03:04and professor emeritus at Wayne State University.
03:08Just like two economies, like two states would be tied together,
03:13Canada has been tied that closely together to the United States
03:16for auto industry now for over 60 years.
03:20So this is nothing new.
03:22This has been here.
03:23It's built and baked into the cake at this point.
03:26There's no turning back on that.
03:28A lot has changed in the nearly 100 years
03:31since the predecessor bridge, the Ambassador,
03:34became the first bridge to span the Detroit River.
03:37Built for a different time, different types of vehicles,
03:41different amount of trade, different amount of travel back and forth.
03:45Really, it's an old bridge.
03:47It's been updated in some respects,
03:49but it still is very steep, and it's slow,
03:53and it effectively, for trucks, is really a one-lane bridge.
03:59One of the most important things
04:00that made the Ambassador Bridge obsolete
04:02was the enormous growth in trade
04:05crossing between Windsor and Detroit.
04:07Canada is the second largest trading partner
04:09for the U.S. after Mexico.
04:11Last year, the U.S. exported nearly $334 billion of goods
04:16to its northern neighbor
04:17and imported $382 billion worth.
04:20And roughly a quarter of those goods
04:22went across the Detroit River,
04:24traveling on trucks like those of On Freight Logistics,
04:28founded and led by Steve Undeco.
04:3185% of our business crosses the Windsor-Detroit bridge
04:34to go to and from the central states of the U.S. and Canada,
04:39Ontario specifically.
04:41Undeco's trucks were the first commercial vehicles
04:44to go over the Gordie-Howe bridge.
04:46We assisted the Gordie-Howe bridge in testing.
04:49They were testing their equipment, their technology,
04:51and the movement and flow of trucks on the bridge,
04:54so we participated highly with them to do that
04:56and be successful to do that.
04:58It was disappointing for everybody
04:59when the Gordie-Howe bridge was...
05:01President Trump decided it wasn't going to open
05:04until he said it was going to open.
05:06Just as Gordie-Howe grew up in Canada
05:09and became a hockey legend playing in the U.S.,
05:12Undeco's On Freight Logistics
05:14has strong roots in both countries.
05:16So On Freight Logistics is a combination of companies,
05:19primarily our trucking operation
05:21that does international traffic
05:23between the U.S. and Canada.
05:25We're transporting over 100 loads per day
05:29to and from and across the border.
05:32Our operation has 250 employees
05:35within the trucking operation
05:36and another 50 employees
05:38within our warehousing and packaging operations.
05:40That has been stable for a number of years
05:42and we're actually on a growth pattern now
05:44in the last six months.
05:46Robust trade has long been at the core
05:49of economic relations between the U.S. and Canada,
05:51going back to before NAFTA.
05:54Canada and the U.S., like any two countries,
05:57have had at least a small number of barriers
06:00protecting certain industries.
06:02So the integration of the two economies is very thorough
06:06and it starts actually 60 years ago
06:10in an agreement that established the foundations for this
06:13relative to the auto industry.
06:15They have then extended with NAFTA
06:19and then Trump didn't like NAFTA
06:21so he negotiated the USMCA.
06:26But that's a treaty
06:28and we've now broken the treaty.
06:30Why should we carry Canada?
06:32Why should we carry Mexico?
06:34But recently, President Trump's rhetoric and policies
06:38have put in question the future of trade relations.
06:41He has made manufacturing the keystone
06:43of his trade efforts.
06:45For its part, Canada has sought to protect
06:47its dairy industry.
06:48Dairy that exceeds Canada's quotas
06:50is subject to a 200 to 300 percent levy,
06:53making it prohibitively expensive for foreign producers.
06:56After initially announcing 50 percent tariffs
06:59on Canadian imports,
07:00in August, President Trump held off,
07:03saying the two countries had reached a deal.
07:05That deal never materialized,
07:08leading the U.S. tariffs to go forward
07:09and Prime Minister Carney to levy his own tariffs
07:12against the U.S.
07:14Now what we've seen
07:15is this 50 percent tariff on everything.
07:18Well, what's the purpose of that?
07:20Well, it's a whim.
07:22And so government by whim
07:25is not a modern and responsible
07:27business-like way to do trade.
07:31All of these things are going to cost us
07:34an enormous amount of money.
07:36I can't tell you how much the change in GDP will be,
07:40but it's a lot.
07:41And it's not just overall GDP growth
07:44that may be hurt by the back and forth
07:46over U.S.-Canada trade.
07:48It's businesses like On Freight Logistics
07:50trying to make investment decisions.
07:52This not knowing, changing every six months,
07:55every three months,
07:56is just unleveling and it's unnerving.
08:01We're investing millions of dollars in equipment.
08:03I've got millions of dollars of equipment coming
08:05in the next six to 12 months.
08:07And it's kind of unnerving that this is going on
08:10and how is this going to affect the flow of goods
08:12and the flow of international trade.
08:15Paying a price for all that uncertainty may be worth it
08:18when the ultimate result will bring real benefits
08:20for one economy or the other.
08:22But economists like Belzer say that
08:24even when the dust eventually settles,
08:27there are still real questions
08:28about whether tariffs do more harm than good.
08:31In the case of U.S. and Canada specifically,
08:36when economies are roughly in the same league
08:39with each other,
08:40there's really no benefit
08:42in maintaining tariffs between the two of them.
08:47Tariffs are significant
08:49when you're a developing country
08:51and you're trying to protect an industry.
08:53And they're of significant value
08:56if your economies are really different.
08:59The current circumstances are such
09:02that the U.S. and Canada are pretty equally matched.
09:06Compensation, working conditions, employment.
09:11What you have is each country is producing something
09:15for which it has comparative advantage.
09:19I'll specialize in this product,
09:21you specialize in this product.
09:22And those specializations cross our borders all the time.
09:26And so for the auto industry,
09:28that specialization is baked in.
09:31This is the way it works.
09:33Dividing them back up into separate ones
09:35will make us all poorer.
09:37It'll probably make the United States poorer
09:41than it will make the Canadians.
09:43At least that's what I think.
09:44It will cause more harm to our economy
09:47because our economy is bigger
09:49than to the Canadians.
09:52Ironically, the economics of U.S.-Canada trade
09:54ultimately take us back to the game of hockey
09:57that made Gordie Howe a legend.
09:59Belzer sees U.S. trade policy
10:01as a prime example of the sort of goal
10:03you don't want to score in hockey.
10:06The only winner is our opponents
10:10in the global strategic competitive contest.
10:13Those are the winners.
10:14This is what we would call an own goal
10:17if you knocked the puck into your own net.
10:21So that's an own goal.
10:23This is an own goal.
10:24There is nothing I've ever seen
10:26in the world of economics
10:28closer to an own goal than this one.
10:31And Gordie Howe himself epitomizes
10:34two sides of the U.S.-Canada relationship.
10:36Biographer McSkimming reports that
10:39as much of a gentleman as Howe was off the ice,
10:41he was never known to avoid a fight
10:44on the ice when called for.
10:46Hockey fans still refer to the Gordie Howe hat trick,
10:50a goal, an assist, and a fight in the same game.
10:54And it all may have come
10:56from what the Canadian boy Gordie Howe
10:58learned from his American father.
11:01Gordie Howe's American father told him,
11:04he said, Gordie, whatever you do,
11:06don't take dirt from nobody.
11:09Because if you take it,
11:11they'll just keep throwing it at you.
11:13So don't back down.
11:16Keep your elbows up
11:17and stay on the offensive.