Hong Kong opposes “bullying tactics” in international trade, Chief Executive John Lee has said after local conglomerate CK Hutchison sold dozens of ports – including two in Panama – to a US company amid a deepening US-China trade war.

Hong Kong’s leader says his government opposes coercion by foreign governments, an allusion to comments by U.S. President Donald Trump, but stopped short of criticizing a prominent local conglomerate’s decision to sell its Panama Canal port assets to a consortium including American investment bank BlackRock Inc.