My Take | Realist Xi vs fabulist Trump, just guess who will come out on top
US president’s Panama Canal move, while having made a lot of money for HK tycoon, is more like misdirected fire than a win over Beijing
Poor CK Hutchison! Hong Kong’s best known home-grown international conglomerate has been forced to exit its global port business. Under pressure from Washington, its operations at the Panama Canal were especially targeted.
Strangely, though, Li Ka-shing, the city’s most famous tycoon, and his son Victor – their family controls the corporation – have been heard laughing all the way to the bank this week after they sold the business for US$23 billion.
For the price, a group led by US-based BlackRock gets two ports at either end of the canal along with more than 40 others in 23 countries. Priced at roughly 13 times earnings in 2024, it means the Lis and their fellow shareholders get to pocket more than a dozen years of earnings. The share price of No 1 – that’s CK Hutchison’s trading code on the Hong Kong stock exchange – shot up more than 30 per cent on news of the deal.
Could this be a win-win for both sides? Not really. In the mental universe of Donald Trump, there are only winners and losers, and he always wins, no matter what. And the stock market is the ultimate arbiter.
But if the US president has scored another big win, the Chinese must be the loser. Addressing a joint session of the US Congress this week, Trump declared that his administration was “reclaiming the Panama Canal” to protect US national security,
“The Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others,” he said, “We didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama and we’re taking it back.”
All that for targeting what is essentially a port management subsidiary from Hong Kong? Some blow to President Xi Jinping indeed!
