Trump wants to 'end' largest U.S. infrastructure project, a tunnel between NY and NJ

NEW YORK − The nation’s largest infrastructure project has drawn President Donald Trump’s ire in his latest fight with congressional Democrats.

Trump has vowed to end the Gateway tunnel project meant to expand train service between New York and New Jersey along the nation’s busiest rail corridor.

The project − meant to create a new rail tunnel and rehabilitate the existing 115-year-old pair of tunnels under the Hudson River − has already begun construction at several sites with hundreds of workers operating as of Oct. 17. That hasn’t stopped Trump, a former New York real estate mogul, from threatening the $16 billion project.

“I’m cutting the project,” Trump told FOX News. The full interview is set to air on FOX News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” on Oct. 19.

“The project is going to be dead,” he said. “It is pretty much dead right now.”

Trump has made clear he wanted to send a message to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, who fought to get funds on Gateway. “Tell him it’s terminated,” the president said earlier this week.

On the Senate floor on Oct. 16, Schumer said the funding cut is “petty revenge politics.”

“Gateway is the most important infrastructure project in America, period,” he said. “It will keep our economy moving, our region connected, and tens of thousands of union workers on the job.”

The project, set to build 9 miles of new passenger rail track with a two-tube tunnel, is set to be completed by 2035. The old rail tunnel is expected to be repaired and back in service by 2038. The project has been billed as bringing tens of thousands of jobs, tens of billions of dollars in economic activity and increasing transit ridership with four tracks instead of the current two.

Stephen Sigmund, a spokesperson for the Gateway Development Commission, the public authority tasked with the project, declined to comment.

The White House, Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Transportation didn’t immediately respond to email requests for comment.

A central component of the largest regional economy

Each day, hundreds of thousands of people ride Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains crossing under the Hudson to and from Manhattan. The two existing century-old rail tunnels were damaged during Superstorm Sandy in 2012. If one track’s tunnel were to fail, the nonprofit Regional Planning Association estimated it could cost $16 billion over four years, or about 33,000 jobs each year.

Although Trump has campaigned on increased infrastructure spending − including specifically for mass transit in New York City − those promises have never been fulfilled. The self-described “builder president” tried to kill Gateway in his first term as well. The Trump administration in 2017 said the deal to fund the new tunnel between New York, New Jersey and the federal government was nonexistent, Crain’s New York Business reported.

While the project has faced threats to its funding for years, the Trump administration set its sights on the Hudson on the first day of the government shutdown.

On Oct. 1, the DOT officials withheld grants to the Gateway project and the Second Avenue Subway construction, in Manhattan, citing New York City’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program, an equity initiative meant to expand participation in federally assisted contracts.

In an X post, Russ Vought, the director of the federal Office of Management and Budget, said the hold is meant to “ensure funding is not flowing based on unconstitutional DEI principles,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.

Grant disbursements for Gateway have been on hold since then, Sigmund said in an email. The commission is working with federal partners to comply with federal laws and regulations.

Mike Hellstrom, vice president and eastern regional manager of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, said the funding cut likely means delays for a multigenerational project, which means extra costs and potential job losses.

The project already has five active construction sites in New York, New Jersey and in the Hudson, he said. Shafts and portal entrances are being built ahead of boring machines expected to arrive around January.

“There’s a lot on the line for us as working people,” Hellstrom said. “There’s also a lot on the line for the rail riders.”

In an Oct. 15 MSNBC interview, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called Trump’s threats on the new tunnel “shortsighted.”

“We need to replace them because if this system of transportation collapses, the Northeastern economy and the economy of the country collapses,” she said.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is overseeing the Manhattan subway expansion, said funding for its tunnel-boring contract has already been approved.

Across the Hudson, the billion-dollar Gateway project has also become key in the closely watched New Jersey governor’s race between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli.

“I’ll fight tooth and nail to get this funding back and complete this essential infrastructure project for our state, commuters, and economy,” Sherrill, a New Jersey Congress member, said in an X post.

Ciattarelli, a businessman and former state assembly member, has received Trump’s endorsement. But that didn’t stop him from vowing to fight for Gateway.

“New Jersey needs a Governor who has the standing to work with, and when necessary disagree with, the President and advocate for New Jersey’s fair share of federal tax dollars ‒ including the Gateway Tunnel,” he said in an X post.

With years fighting for the project, and political consensus now around it, Trump’s actions wouldn’t kill the project but would delay it, Alon Levy, a public transportation research scholar at New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management.

“Cancellation will not actually save money,” Levy said.