The Port of Vancouver, Canada’s main trade gateway to Asia, kicked off the search for a company to build a new wharf to handle 70% more containers, as the country looks for ways reduce economic reliance on the U.S.

The work is expected to cost at least C$3 billion ($2.2 billion), Victor Pang, the port’s chief financial officer, said in a phone interview. The Roberts Bank Terminal 2 Project has been in the works for more than a decade, but the port’s move to send out a request for qualifications to build it shows that it’s moving ahead.

Canada is searching for “nation-building projects” to boost growth and diversify trade away from the U.S. after President Donald Trump launched a global trade war and repeatedly talked about absorbing the country as the 51st U.S. state. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government recently passed a law that’s designed to speed up government approvals for such projects.

“We’ve been talking to the government at all levels, including the most senior, about the project,” Pang said, and conversations are happening on ways to “even potentially further accelerate it.”

Roberts Bank 2 has received most approvals already, though it’s awaiting a green light from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Building the 100-hectare marine landmass, causeway and wharf structure will ultimately create more than 18,000 jobs during the terminal’s construction and add C$3 billion annually to Canada’s gross domestic product, the port has said.

The terminal is set to be running by the mid 2030s and the expansion would allow the port to handle an additional 2.4 million twenty-foot equivalent units a year. That represents a 70% increase to the port’s 2024 container volume of 3.5 million. Vancouver’s port says it already handles almost as much cargo as the next five largest Canadian ports combined.

Pang said the port doesn't have a policy to penalize bidders from any particular country, such as China or the U.S., despite a movement in the country to steer government contracts to domestic companies. British Columbia’s ferry company, for example, is embroiled in a political controversy over a major contract that was awarded to China. But suppliers of building materials from Canada would have natural advantages because they’re closer, Pang said.