Chief executive John Lee said he hoped for a "good starting point" for Hong Kong-US ties, which frayed during a US-China trade war that began in Trump's first term.

"There are a lot of commonalities and common interests between Hong Kong and the US, and with the new president in office, I hope to see that there will be good efforts to promote positive relations," Lee told reporters.

However, an official later told AFP that the Hong Kong administration "disapproves of and condemns" recent comments about Lai made by Trump's former vice president Mike Pence.

Pence visited Hong Kong last week to speak at an event hosted by UBS bank.

His account on social media platform X later reposted a Wall Street Journal editorial that quoted him as calling for China to release Lai as a "message of good will".

A government spokesperson said Pence's comments were intended "to influence the fairness of the trial with malicious intent".

This was "a shameless interference with the course of justice and on Hong Kong's righteous efforts in safeguarding national security".

US politicians should not "make use of business activities for political manipulation in a vain attempt to challenge the rule of law in Hong Kong", the spokesperson said.

Lai, the 77-year-old founder of the tabloid Apple Daily, is facing foreign collusion charges under a national security law that could land him in jail for life.

While Pence delivered his speech to UBS clients on Thursday, Lai was testifying in a courtroom halfway across the city.

Relations between Hong Kong and the United States worsened after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the finance hub in 2020 following huge pro-democracy protests a year earlier.

Local officials have defended the law as necessary to restore order.

The foreign collusion charges against Lai partly hinge on whether he had tried to lobby Pence to sanction China and Hong Kong during a 2019 meeting.

Lai has rejected the allegation.

Pence did not respond to an AFP question about Lai's case while he was in Taipei last week.