Mayors of Halifax and Boston celebrate ties despite Canada-U.S. trade conflict

Despite the frosty relationship between Canada and the United States, Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu say the ties between the two cities remain strong.

The Boston mayor was in Halifax ahead of Wednesday’s tree-cutting ceremony, during which a Christmas tree will be felled for transport to the American city. Nova Scotia delivers a Christmas tree to Boston every year to thank the city for helping Halifax after the Dec. 6, 1917, explosion that killed almost 2,000 people.

Wu is the first Boston Mayor to come to Nova Scotia to officially shepherd the Christmas tree to the U.S.

After meeting with Fillmore, Wu told reporters her visit reminded her of the ongoing friendship between Boston and Nova Scotia that “transcends generations, political boundaries and geographic boundaries.”

One of the boundaries that Canada is finding increasingly difficult to transcend is economic, with the Trump administration imposing tariffs on sectors including steel, aluminum, automobiles and softwood lumber.

Wu, a Democrat, said she is having to “push back and outright fight” the Republican president’s trade policies.

Her time in Nova Scotia, she said, “is a chance to make clear that the people of Boston feel very differently about the people of Halifax” than it might seem by her country’s federal politics.

Fillmore echoed her thoughts, saying that as a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, he was “concerned about the direction” of the current U.S. leadership. “I share the mayor’s perspective that the values being displayed through some of the significant policy decisions are not representative of the founding values of the United States.”

The Halifax mayor says tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Canada have forced the port city to find new cargo ship operators and new trading partners overseas.

Wu will be on hand in Lunenburg, N.S. Wednesday for the tree-cutting ceremony, and says she looks forward to personally thanking the family that planted the tree.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2025.