Hong Kong's richest man is in hot water over his company's Panama Canal ports deal

HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing’s business empire is in the crosshairs after CK Hutchison Holdings chose to sell its Panama Canal port assets to a consortium that includes U.S. investment firm BlackRock Inc., apparently angering Beijing.

Over the past week, Beijing's Hong Kong affairs offices have posted scathing commentaries from a local state-backed media outlet over the tentative deal by Hutchison, which is controlled by Li’s family.

That raises questions about the deal and highlights the difficulties Hong Kong businesses face as they balance demands from Beijing for national loyalty and their own capitalist interests in the once free-wheeling Asian financial hub. Here's what to know about the issue.

Nicknamed “Superman,” Li is among the world’s 50 richest people, with Forbes calculating his net worth at $38 billion. Li, 96, retired from his position as chairman of CK Hutchison in 2018, succeeded by his elder son Victor. But he's still one of Hong Kong's most influential figures.

Li's rags-to-riches story paralleled the former British colony’s rise. His business empire touches almost every aspect of daily life in Hong Kong, from properties and supermarkets to telecommunications and utilities. Globally, his conglomerate owns assets including British drugstore chain Superdrug and European mobile phone network operator Three.

A Hutchison subsidiary has operated ports at both ends of the Panama Canal since 1997. That was one reason U.S. President Donald Trump has alleged Chinese interference with the critical shipping lane's operations.

Li’s influence extends beyond business. He has met with top Chinese leaders and has served on the elite committee that selected Hong Kong’s leader.

Experts on ties between Beijing and Hong Kong said ruling Communist Party leaders once understood that support from the business sector was crucial for maintaining Hong Kong’s capitalist system. It has been strategically vital for mainland China’s economy, given the role their global networks and resources play in the country’s development. So, Li has had notable political influence.

But Li has faced criticism over some business decisions. When he sold off some mainland Chinese assets in 2015, an article published by a think tank affiliated with Chinese official news agency Xinhua accused him of being immoral.

During pro-democracy protests in 2019, Li was blasted by some pro-Beijing supporters for his perceived ambivalence about the unrest. Some other Hong Kong business leaders adopted a harsher stance.

CK Hutchison announced March 4 that it would sell all its shares in Hutchison Port Holdings and in Hutchison Port Group Holdings to the consortium that also includes BlackRock subsidiary Global Infrastructure Partners and Terminal Investment Limited, which is chaired by Italian shipping scion Diego Aponte, whose family reportedly has a longstanding relationship with Li’s.

If approved, the deal, valued at nearly $23 billion including $5 billion in debt, will give the consortium control over 43 ports in 23 countries, including the ports of Balboa and Cristobal, located at either end of the canal. The transaction does not include ports in Hong Kong or mainland China. CK Hutchison said the transaction was purely commercial in nature.

The deal pleased Trump but angered Beijing.

One of the Beijing-backed newspaper commentaries described the deal as a betrayal of all Chinese and said the company should think about which side to take. The other said great entrepreneurs are patriots, suggesting that businesspeople who “dance with” predatory American politicians would be doomed to infamy.

Comments on popular posts about the deal on Chinese social media platform Weibo tend to be more critical than favorable toward Li.

Chief Executive John Lee avoided direct criticism of the deal or Trump, but told reporters on Tuesday his government opposes bullying tactics in international economic and trade relations, reiterating Beijing's stance.

Some unconfirmed reports have suggested Chinese leaders were angry not to have been consulted in advance about the deal.

George Chen, managing director for Hong Kong at The Asia Group, a Washington-headquartered business and policy consulting firm, said Beijing may have been disappointed because it had almost no time to devise a response in advance.

Ports are valuable strategic assets and transactions involving them are always sensitive, said Wilson Chan, co-founder of the Pagoda Institute, a think tank focusing on public policy and the global political economy.

It is unclear whether pressure from Beijing will affect the deal, which has to be approved by Panama's government. China’s Foreign Ministry deflected a question about whether authorities are investigating the deal, saying reporters should ask other authorities.

Cancelling the deal would be risky, Chan said.

“Strictly speaking, you just let Trump take credit for it, then you later say ‘Sorry, I’m canceling the deal.’ You can imagine what Trump’s reaction would be,” he said, adding that would also affect how the outside world views Hong Kong businesses.

CK Hutchison has not commented on the controversy.

The company reported its 2024 financial results on Thursday, but did not hold a news conference. Victor Li did not mention the deal in his chairman’s statement but said the operating environment for the group’s business is expected to be volatile and unpredictable. He said he anticipated potential headwinds for the company’s ports and related services in early 2025 as shipping lines transition into their new alliances and ongoing geopolitical risk impacts global trade.

The first Trump administration sanctioned Chinese and Hong Kong officials for undermining the autonomy of the territory promised when Britain handed its colony to Beijing in 1997 under a concept dubbed “One country, two systems.” It promised the city could keep its Western-style civil liberties and economic autonomy for at least 50 years, but following the 2019 protests, Beijing has doubled-down on its political control of the city.

Li could try to placate critics who deem him insufficiently patriotic, Chan said, by using proceeds from selling the port assets for investments aligned with Beijing’s policies, particularly in developing Hong Kong and mainland port businesses.

But relations between private businesses and Beijing remain uncertain, said The Asia Group's Chen. Even though Chinese President Xi Jinping recently met with private sector business leaders in a show of support, some may wonder if they must follow the party line even if that might conflict with their business interests, he said.

If Beijing steps up pressure on Li to scrap the deal, the Trump administration could hit back with more sanctions and restrictions on Hong Kong and Chinese businesses and some individuals, he said.

The situation shows that Washington’s concerns about Hong Kong's business autonomy are valid, Chen said.

“This is bad when it comes to the defense of ‘one country, two systems,’” Chen said.

A U.S. Coast Guard ship docks in a naval base along the Panama Canal in Panama City, Thursday, March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A U.S. Coast Guard ship docks at a naval base along the Panama Canal in Panama City, Thursday, March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

A cargo ship sails past the Panama Canal's Port of Balboa, managed by CK Hutchison Holdings, in Panama City, Thursday, March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

FILE - Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings company, waves goodbye to media after the company's Annual General Meeting in Hong Kong, May 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

FILE - Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings company, waves to media after the company's Annual General Meeting in Hong Kong, May 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

FILE - Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, chairman of CK Hutchison Holdings company, speaks during a press conference to announce the company's annual results in Hong Kong, March 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — When acting Attorney General Todd Blanche signed off on a nearly $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate President Donald Trump's allies for alleged political prosecution, he may have pleased his boss.

But the eyebrow-raising move — the latest in his push to prove his loyalty to Trump — has agitated the same Republican lawmakers if he is nominated for the permanent job.

Blanche insists he’s not auditioning for the job of attorney general. But a succession of splashy steps the Justice Department has taken under his watch since he took the position on an acting basis last month, including an indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, has left no doubt about the impression he’s hoping to make on the president who appointed him.

The fund in particular has put Blanche at the center of a Republican firestorm at a time when he aims to establish himself as the perfect person for the job for the remainder of Trump’s term. And it sharpened concerns from Democrats and other Blanche critics that he has not shed his mantle as the president’s personal attorney.

“So the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong — Take your pick,” Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the former majority leader, said in a statement.

A former federal prosecutor in New York, Blanche came to public prominence for his lead role on Trump's defense team, including during the Republican's hush money trial in New York. That perch afforded him, he has said, a firsthand look at what he contends was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.

He was brought into the Justice Department as deputy attorney general, the No. 2 job, then was elevated last month after Trump ousted Pam Bondi.

Now he finds himself the latest Trump-appointed attorney general to simultaneously confront expectations from subordinates to uphold institutional norms and demands from the president to do his bidding.

Trump's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was forced out after the 2018 midterms after infuriating the president over his recusal from an investigation into ties between Russia and the 2016 presidential campaign. Another, William Barr, resigned after their relationship fizzled over Barr's refusal to back Trump's baseless claims of massive election fraud. Bondi was removed after struggling to bring successful prosecutions against Trump's political opponents.

Two weeks after becoming acting attorney general, Blanche announced the appointment of Joseph diGenova, an 81-year-old former Justice Department prosecutor from the Reagan administration, to a special position inside the department. He'll oversee a Florida-based investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump.

“At some point, at the right time, that will be made public and the American people will see exactly what happened to this administration and President Trump over the past decade," Blanche told Fox News.

Prior government reviews of the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation, a centerpiece of the current conspiracy investigation, have failed to produce criminal charges against senior officials or evidence of criminal conduct by them. It's not clear what, if any, new information the continuing investigation has developed.

The Justice Department also last month obtained an indictment charging Comey, a Trump foe whose prosecution the president has long called for, with threatening Trump through a social media photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47" — a case legal experts say will be challenging for prosecutors. Comey has said he wouldn't be surprised if the Justice Department pursues additional indictments.

In other moves, Blanche announced an indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that has been the target of conservative outrage, with misleading donors about its activities, and has publicly defended a Justice Department crackdown on leaks to the news media, including subpoenas to reporters.

Arguably the most audacious demonstration of loyalty to Trump came this week when the Justice Department announced the creation of a $1.776 billion fund to compensate people who feel they've been unjustly investigated and prosecuted, coupled with a guarantee of immunity from tax audits for Trump and his eldest sons.

As Republican concerns grew, Blanche held a tense meeting with GOP lawmakers Thursday. Shortly afterward, Senate Republicans abruptly left Washington without voting on a roughly $70 billion bill to fund immigration enforcement agencies.

Blanche, who defended the fund at a congressional hearing this week, has said anyone who believes they've been persecuted can apply for compensation regardless of political affiliation. But the fund has been widely understood as a boon to Trump allies investigated during the Biden administration.

“It’s pretty clear that he’s not the attorney general for the United States as much as he's the attorney general for President Trump,” said Stephen Saltzburg, a George Washington University law professor and senior Justice Department official in the 1980s. He said Blanche would get an A+ if report cards were issued for fealty to Trump.

David Laufman, a former chief of staff to the deputy attorney general in President George W. Bush's administration, said that rather than protecting the Justice Department's independence, Blanche has been a “willing and ardent accomplice for carrying out any partisan or corrupt scheme the White House may devise.”

Blanche’s supporters dismiss the suggestion he is trying to curry favor with Trump to secure the permanent job.

“What he is doing is he is seeking justice based on facts and the law,” said Jay Town, who served as a U.S. attorney in Alabama during the first Trump administration. “And I don’t think that will ever change about him, whether he is the attorney general going forward or doesn’t spend another day in the administration. He is an honorable man and anybody that knows him knows that to be true.”

Blanche also says he is not angling to keep his job or feeling pressure to placate Trump.

He has told reporters he would be honored to be nominated but, "if he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir.’ I don’t have any goals or aspirations beyond that.”

In recent days, he's functioned as the fund's public face and most visible defender, a role consistent with his comfort in the spotlight. He sometimes holds multiple press conferences a week and grants interviews to a variety of news outlets, a contrast to Bondi, who largely stuck to Fox News appearances.

His defenders say his experience as a federal prosecutor has made him a more sophisticated communicator for the department than Bondi, but his statements have at times invited backlash, including his refusal to rule out that violent Jan. 6 rioters could be eligible for payouts.

Though Blanche will appoint the five commissioners tasked with processing claims, his precise role in the fund’s implementation is unclear. He told CNN it was developed through negotiations with Trump’s private lawyers, not him.

For some Democrats, that's a difference without a distinction.

“Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president's personal attorney," Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, told Blanche during a combative exchange in the Senate hearing, "and that's the whole problem."

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche arrives for a closed-door meeting with Republican senators who are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump's ballroom after it has failed to win enough party support, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche arrives for a closed-door meeting with Republican senators who are expected to abandon a proposal for $1 billion in security money for the White House complex and President Donald Trump's ballroom after it has failed to win enough party support, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, May 21, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)