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The measure, which could lead to sanctions on Chinese officials for cracking down on the protesters, drew bipartisan support from Congress.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump on Wednesday signed tough legislation that authorizes sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials responsible for human rights abuses in Hong Kong, signaling support for pro-democracy activists and escalating tensions with Beijing as Mr. Trump tries to negotiate a trade deal with Chinese leaders.
China’s Foreign Ministry was furious, saying the bill “seriously interfered with Hong Kong affairs, seriously interfered with China’s internal affairs, and seriously violated international law and basic norms of international relations.” The ministry warned the United States against acting arbitrarily and said that any consequences would “be borne by the United States.”
Whether Mr. Trump would sign the legislation had been a subject of debate. He refused to commit to doing so as late as last Friday, saying that he supported the protesters but that President Xi Jinping of China was “a friend of mine.” But Mr. Trump was left with few options: The bill had passed both the House and the Senate by veto-proof majorities.
Mr. Trump’s decision, publicly announced the evening before Thanksgiving and after markets had closed, throws a potential wrench into the United States’ bilateral trade talks with China. Both countries have tried to keep the Hong Kong issue separate from their negotiations, which have been moving slowly.
Mr. Trump said his decision was not a sign of disrespect toward Mr. Xi, even though China’s government had demanded that the president reject the measure. Mr. Trump had previously skirted around the battles between pro-democracy demonstrators and police officers enforcing China’s authoritarian stance in Hong Kong.
“I signed these bills out of respect for President Xi, China and the people of Hong Kong,” Mr. Trump said in a statement on Wednesday. “They are being enacted in the hope that leaders and representatives of China and Hong Kong will be able to amicably settle their differences leading to long-term peace and prosperity for all.”
The second bill that Mr. Trump signed bans the sale of crowd-control munitions like tear gas and rubber bullets to the Hong Kong police.
The pro-Beijing government in Hong Kong expressed its strong displeasure, calling the two measures “unnecessary and unwarranted, and would harm the relations and common interests between Hong Kong and the U.S.”
The Hong Kong government vigorously argued that the bills were not necessary, especially after the territory was able to hold peaceful local elections last Sunday in which antigovernment candidates won 87 percent of the seats. The vote showed that “democracy is alive and well,” said Ronny Tong, a member of the cabinet of Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s embattled chief executive.
The main measure, titled the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, would compel the United States to impose sanctions on officials. It would also require the State Department to annually review the special autonomous status it grants the territory in trade considerations. That status is separate from the relationship with mainland China, and revoking it would mean less favorable trade conditions between the United States and Hong Kong.
Protesters said the law would give them more leverage over officials in Beijing and in Hong Kong who want to maintain good relations with the United States and to preserve the special trade status.
“I hope it can act as a warning to Hong Kong and Beijing officials, pro-Beijing people and the police,” said Nelson Lam, 32, a food importer. “I think if they know that what they do may lead to sanctions, then they will become restrained when dealing with protests. We just want our autonomy back. We are not their foe.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry stopped short of linking Hong Kong in any way to the trade talks, although trade is outside its jurisdiction.
Although Mr. Trump announced last month that the United States and China had reached a “historic” Phase 1 trade agreement, signing a deal has proved elusive. Mr. Trump has continued to be coy about whether he will agree to remove any of the tariffs he has placed on $360 billion worth of Chinese goods. The United States has to decide by Dec. 15 whether to impose another round of tariffs on even more Chinese imports, including consumer goods like smartphones and laptops.
Evan S. Medeiros, a Georgetown University professor who was the senior Asia director on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council staff, said Mr. Trump’s action could be his attempt to look tough on China to American voters without entirely upsetting the negotiations.
“Signing the bill is an important signal amid the trade talks, but not an unpredicted one given the near unanimous congressional support,” he said. “The real question is how the president will use these new authorities. Perhaps this move is best understood as a leading indicator that U.S.-China trade talks are essentially done.”
Lawmakers from both parties had clamored for the president to sign the legislation as a show of support for the young demonstrators who have been defiantly pushing back against China’s tightening hold over the semiautonomous territory.
Some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent supporters had cautioned against rejecting the legislation. “The U.S. now has new and meaningful tools to deter further influence and interference from Beijing into Hong Kong’s internal affairs,” said Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida and one of the legislation’s many champions in the upper chamber. “This new law could not be more timely in showing strong U.S. support for Hong Kongers’ long-cherished freedoms.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Wednesday that “this bicameral, bipartisan law reaffirms our nation’s commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law in the face of Beijing’s crackdown.”
“America is proud to stand with the people of Hong Kong on the side of freedom and justice,” she said in a statement.
In recent months, a bipartisan push to confront China and its authoritarian leader has grown on a wide range of issues, including Beijing’s commercial practices and its global infrastructure projects. The United States has also protested the detention of at least a million Uighurs, a Muslim ethnic minority, in northwest China.
Mr. Trump has been trying to get China to agree to a trade deal that would benefit American farmers and manufacturers and allow technology firms to operate more freely in that country. The desire to sign a deal that ends pain for American farmers has become particularly important ahead of the 2020 presidential election, and Mr. Trump has left the impression that all other issues related to China are secondary, especially ones related to human rights.
Last Friday, in an interview on “Fox & Friends,” Mr. Trump said, “We have to stand with Hong Kong, but I’m also standing with President Xi.” Last June, Mr. Trump promised Mr. Xi in a telephone conversation that he would not speak out in support of the Hong Kong protests as long as trade talks were progressing. Mr. Trump did mention Hong Kong during a speech in September at the United Nations General Assembly, but did so while praising Mr. Xi, and he has not consistently made strong statements on Hong Kong.
Even as he announced he was signing the bills, Mr. Trump appeared to hedge his full-throated support for the broader legislation, saying that “certain provisions of the act would interfere with the exercise of the president’s constitutional authority to state the foreign policy of the United States.”
“My administration will treat each of the provisions of the act consistently with the president’s constitutional authorities with respect to foreign relations,” Mr. Trump said. He did not specify which parts of the bill posed such interference with executive powers.
In reply, the Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York, said on Twitter, “Decency, humanity, and the rule of law compel you to enforce it. Stop playing games.”
One of the main provisions compels the administration to impose economic and travel sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials found to be violating human rights in the territory. Mr. Trump or relevant agencies could try to slow walk such sanctions — and might even use the threat of imposing them to as a cudgel against China in trade negotiations.
Mr. Trump has refused to impose sanctions on Chinese officials for the mass detention of Muslims, despite recommendations to do so by some American officials.
For months, Hong Kong protesters had called for the United States to pass the bill. The protesters in October even held a rally supporting the bill that was attended by more than 100,000 people; many waved American flags or wrapped them around their bodies.
Jessica Chen Weiss, a professor of government at Cornell University, said in the long run, it was not likely to seriously affect relations with Beijing. “I expect we will probably see more heated rhetoric and symbolic outrage from the Chinese government,” she said. But she added that “Trump’s signing statement suggests that he won’t let his hands be tied by Congress in dealing with China, and that he’ll continue to exercise executive discretion in whether to implement its provisions.”
Emily Cochrane reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.; Edward Wong from Houston; and Keith Bradsher from Shanghai. Ezra Cheung contributed reporting from Hong Kong.
