In a rebuke to China and its encroachment on Hong Kong, Trump could dramatically change the relationship with the territory.
President Donald Trump said Friday that his administration would begin the process of revoking Hong Kong’s special trade status, a day after China approved a national security law that threatens Hong Kong’s autonomy.
“China has replaced its promised formula of one country, two systems, with one country, one system,” Trump announced Friday from the White House Rose Garden. “Therefore, I am directing my administration to begin the process of eliminating policy exemptions that give Hong Kong different and special treatment.”
Trump said this would include the “full range of agreements” the US has with Hong Kong, including the extradition treaty between the US and Hong Kong, and the end of export controls for the territory.
“We will take action to revoke Hong Kong’s preferential treatment as a separate customs and travel territory from the rest of China,” the president added.
Trump’s announcement is the most dramatic action his administration has taken yet against China’s intervention in Hong Kong. Earlier this week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decertified Hong Kong’s autonomy, saying “no reasonable person can assert today that Hong Kong maintains a high degree of autonomy from China, given facts on the ground.”
Pompeo cited Beijing’s new national security law, which, if broadly interpreted, could severely restrict freedom of speech and dissent in Hong Kong. Western governments and pro-democracy advocates have decried this as a direct threat to the territory’s semi-autonomous status, which Beijing is bound to preserve until 2047 under a treaty between Britain and China.
