The Trump administration allowed a national emergency declaration over Hong Kong to expire Friday, lifting some sanctions on current and former city officials — but Washington moved quickly to clarify that the underlying executive order stripping Hong Kong of its preferential trade treatment remains fully in place.
The move set off a brief wave of confusion after China’s Commerce Ministry announced Friday that the U.S. had confirmed President Trump’s Executive Order on Hong Kong Normalization would end — suggesting to many observers that Hong Kong’s special trading privileges with the United States might be restored. That interpretation proved to be premature.
A State Department spokesperson told the Associated Press that while Trump allowed the national emergency declaration to expire, “Executive Order 13936 otherwise remains in effect.” The department added that Washington continues to regard Hong Kong as no longer sufficiently autonomous to justify differential treatment from mainland China under the relevant U.S. laws and provisions.
The practical difference between the two is significant. The emergency declaration, which Trump originally signed in July 2020 in response to Beijing imposing a sweeping national security law on the city, provided the legal basis for sanctioning individual officials. The executive order itself did something broader — it eliminated Hong Kong’s preferential trade status, revoked export control exemptions, and formally placed the city on equal legal footing with the mainland for purposes of U.S. trade law.
The expiration of the emergency declaration means the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control delisted 48 individuals who had been sanctioned under it — including current Hong Kong leader John Lee and his predecessor Carrie Lam. But both were simultaneously added to a separate sanctions list under the Hong Kong Autonomy Act of 2020, which remains operative. A Treasury spokesperson said 39 of the 48 individuals affected by the expiration remain sanctioned under that separate law, meaning the practical impact on most of those individuals is limited.
Treasury described the non-renewal as consistent with a broader effort to streamline sanctions and eliminate duplication between overlapping legal authorities, rather than as a policy shift toward Hong Kong.
The Trump administration signed the original executive order in his first term following mass pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and Beijing’s subsequent imposition of the national security law, which China has maintained was necessary to restore stability after the protests posed one of the most significant challenges to Communist Party control since Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule in 1997.
The full implications of Friday’s decision remain unclear. The White House referred questions about the executive order lapsing to the Treasury Department, which has not indicated whether the administration intends any further changes to Hong Kong policy.