By Tom Fowdy
As reported by the Associated Press (AP), "The United States said Saturday it did not renew a national emergency declaration over Hong Kong, leading to the lifting of partial sanctions." While the Trump administration did not restore Hong Kong's special privileges as a separate customs territory, it nonetheless marked the most significant retreat over the city since the "Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act" was imposed in 2019 to support the riots which engulfed the city, and later as a response to the city's National Security Law of 2020.
According to China's Ministry of Commerce, the White House decision was a direct consequence of "the consensus reached during the bilateral economic and trade talks" and expressed appreciation or it. Likewise, Hong Kong's government stated the development represented a "positive shift in the U.S. policy" toward the city and emphasized that "Safeguarding Hong Kong's prosperity and stability serves the common interests of China and the U.S. and also aligns with the general expectation of the international community."
Despite the fact that Trump just days previously claimed China had interfered in the 2020 election, widely cited as being baseless, the decision to retreat on Hong Kong marks a substantial improvement in US-China ties. To anyone watching closely, this should not be a surprise and is very much in with Trump's foreign policy and China strategy. Since taking office in 2024, the second Trump administration has taken a very different approach to China than his previous one, its foreign policy having been hijacked by Neo-Conservative fanatics such as Mike Pompeo and Matthew Pottinger. With Trump having since won the internal power struggles in the Republican Party, and this term being his last, he has subsequently had the authority to shape a more MAGA foreign policy that does not concern itself with the guise of liberal "moral" issues at all, but acts in pursuit of raw national interest with a core objective of boosting American economic power above all else.
This recalibration of Trump's foreign policy has seen America's approach towards Beijing change dramatically. While his first administration, and then Biden's, pursued confrontation with China across a massive range of fronts, from trade, to technology, to Hong Kong, the South China Sea, Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang, Trump 2.0 has effectively discarded all of it apart from the former, with technology acting as an appendage of it. The President sees American Competition with China as predominantly economic, as opposed to military or ideological, and in the process has discarded the adversarial rhetoric endemic of his predecessors. China is a competitor and America needs to win, but it is not an enemy, and hence Trump himself has visited China and Xi Jinping is invited to visit Washington D.C, in hopes that he can bring Beijing to give the US a better deal.
In pursuing such a "MAGA" and self-interest-driven approach, Trump subsequently does not care about the issues that are framed by liberals and NeoConservatives as "moral" ones, such as using human rights as a weapon against Beijing attacking its sovereignty over, or claims to various regions. Instead, the President has adopted the position that these issues are useful "trade-offs" to secure Chinese concessions on economic matters, taking a "If you give us X, we'll give you Y" transactional approach. We've already seen some evidence of this: The President has dramatically played down US hype over Taiwan (although it still sells arms but we should understand this as economic), changing its line from "opposing" changes in the status quo to "does not support", while Xinjiang has disappeared from the agenda. Now, the latest step is that the administration is retreating over its past attempts to politically interfere in Hong Kong. While the White House will of course not give the city its preferential trading status back, precisely because this is giving trade advantage to China, we should assume confidence that White House-led attempts to intervene in the city and support unrest, as like in the past, are over.
Hong Kong, after all, is one of the world's largest financial centres, and even at the height of American confrontation against China from 2020 to 2021, successive administrations did not dare try to directly undermine it with sanctions on an economic level given its importance to global markets. Instead, they waged a negative publicity campaign against it. But by 2026, this has also worn thin. Hong Kong has not died or declined, but is now bigger than ever in terms of its offshore wealth holdings, and nor has the NSL drastically changed everyday life in the city. As a result, we can safely say that China has won on this issue, although what the US has been given in return for backing off over Hong Kong is fundamentally unclear.
In conclusion, Trump is pursuing a transactional foreign policy. He is a dealmaker and at heart a pragmatist, even if he is prone to ridiculous miscalculations such as Iran. China has wisely identified this and despite trade wars, has aptly prevented tensions from escalating. Ironically, his second administration has subsequently corrected the problems caused by his first, but surely this kind of dealmaking will absolutely heighten nerves in Taipei. Trump could demand an astronomical price for it, but it's clearly not off the table.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
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