Marta Leardi-Anderson is Executive Director of the Cross-Border Institute at the University of Windsor, and her work focuses on the impacts on the movement of goods, people, services, and funds across international borders.
In terms of commerce, what is the biggest challenge we face along the Detroit-Windsor border?
In the short term, it’s uncertainty of how businesses will and can respond to tariffs being applied to goods that cross our borders and impact our integrated economy. In the medium and long term, it’s how quickly businesses will evolve in our region because of tariffs that become permanent for the foreseeable future and how the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) negotiations proceed, if they proceed at all.
What do you wish Michiganders better understood about Michigan’s shared borders with Canada?
From an economic perspective, it’s how this region represents a unique economic success story rooted in our ability to create an integrated economy that leverages talent, technology, and value added to economic sectors, like auto and agriculture, which compete with the world. The other is that Canadians are as invested in a strong and growing Michigan economy as we are in our own. We are believers in a “win-win” strategy.
What impact will the Gordie Howe International Bridge have on our cross-border relationship?
The Gordie Howe links our current infrastructure and transportation networks to create a trade corridor between jurisdictions that supports an overall high economic standard of living for not only our regions but also our national economies. It was built with great cooperation between Michigan and Canada, with remarkable effort and dedication to making it a success for both regions: a great lesson for our current national discussions related to our economic futures.
What do you think we need to do to strengthen this critical relationship?
Support the work the Premier of Ontario and the Governor of Michigan are doing on a bilateral basis. We represent billions of dollars in trade, and we cooperate to make a lot of lives economically comfortable. We need to make and sustain some ‘noise’ around these facts. Our regional economy sustains [both of] our national economies, and that’s built on years of hard work and resolve to find mutually beneficial solutions.
What would you like to see come out of the USMCA, which is set to be renegotiated in 2026?
A dedication to how we can drill down on our combined strengths to provide our current and future generations with the economic stability they need to build successful careers and livelihoods. We need to bring urgency to get our trading relationship to a place where it works for all three countries and grow a continental economy that allows us to compete globally, succeed, and share prosperity more broadly.
