Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Halifax: How do Canada's gateway city-regions position themselves within global value chains? How do they plan and deliver transportation infrastructures that facilitate trade? And why do their strategies raise democratic concerns? Gateways to Trade compares the approaches of public and private agents to trade-enabling transportation investment in these four urban centres in order to provide a novel perspective on trade policy and politics. As federal involvement in municipal affairs has evolved, so has a national gateway strategy to plan infrastructure for international trade purposes. This timely work assesses the four governance schemes, their role in facilitating trade connections and implementing value chains, and their dealings, or lack thereof, with citizen organizations. The findings are troubling for advocates of local democracy. The authors find that urban regimes in each city-region operate as executive democracies, consulting private actors, port authorities, and senior governments but generally bypassing citizens. Gateways to Trade underscores the importance of city and regional municipal governments, which are closest to their citizens yet often regarded as bystanders in questions of trade and trade-supporting infrastructure. Its key insights into Canadian trade and infrastructure policies are deeply relevant in a changing global economic environment.