Lawmakers at both the federal and state level are seeking to “blacklist” or otherwise crack down on Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland, including but not limited to land near U.S. military bases.
The February shootdown of a Chinese spy balloon off the Atlantic coast after it traversed the continental United States, along with Chinese purchases of land near U.S. military bases in Texas and North Dakota, helped crystallize the China challenge but also highlighted U.S. weaknesses and significant gaps in tracking and addressing it.
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Chinese investors owned just 69,295 acres of American land at the end of 2011, according to the Department of Agriculture, but by the end of 2021, Chinese investors controlled 383,935 acres.
A flurry of federal legislation to limit Chinese ownership has been introduced recently, much of it led by Republicans in the House and Senate but with some Democratic support. Meanwhile, governors and state legislatures are increasingly taking local action, including likely 2024 GOP contender Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and rising star Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA).
“Purchases of American land at the direction of the Chinese Communist Party, particularly around sensitive national security installations, is yet another concerning example of the Party’s strategy to exert its malign influence in the U.S. and subvert American sovereignty,” Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), chairman of the House select committee on China, told the Washington Examiner. “The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party will examine this issue and work with our colleagues on relevant committees to protect American land from purchases that threaten U.S. national security.”
Federal efforts
Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD), another member of the House China committee, told the Washington Examiner that China’s purchases of U.S. land were “part of a deliberate and planned-in-full attempt by the Chinese Communist Party to gain what they call coercive economic pressure over not just our nation but even more so over African countries and in Southeast Asia.”
“And so Chinese land ownership in America, yes, that’s problematic — it’s a small number now but getting bigger — but their ownership of farmland outside of China has increased 1,000% in the last 10 years,” Johnson said. “And when they own that African farmland, when they own that Southeast Asian farmland, they gain more control over the whole global food supply.”
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) teamed up with Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) in January to push the Promoting Agriculture Safeguards and Security, or PASS, Act, which is “bipartisan legislation aimed at preventing China, Russia, Iran and North Korea from investing in, purchasing, leasing or otherwise acquiring U.S. farmland.”
The legislation also called for adding the secretary of agriculture as a standing member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, an interagency group with authority to review foreign acquisition of U.S. land and businesses.
The Foreign Adversary Risk Management, or FARM, Act introduced by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) this year also calls for adding the agriculture secretary to CFIUS. The FARM Act would also require the Government Accountability Office to “analyze and report on foreign influence in the U.S. agricultural industry.”
The American Farm Bureau Federation said this year that it would support adding the secretary of agriculture to the National Security Council and CFIUS.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told the House in March that USDA currently works with the Treasury Department and others on CFIUS “to make sure that USDA is connected when it’s appropriate” and said there has been “better cooperation recently.” But he contended that “being a permanent member would allow us the opportunity to educate the other members of CFIUS what to look for and what to be sensitive to” related to U.S. agricultural production.
“Giving the secretary of agriculture that seat is going to use existing governmental authority but in a much smarter way related to food and agriculture,” Johnson said, adding, “It’s time for us to have the perspective on agriculture and food there at the table at CFIUS.”
Johnson talked about the House version of the PASS Act being pushed by him, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA), and others.
“We have been dogs like a bone with this issue, and we have identified four abiding adversaries of our country — Iran, North Korea, Russia, and China — and our bill would blacklist those countries and their partners from buying American farmland or American agricultural processing facilities,” Johnson said, adding that the bill “sends the clear message that food security is national security.”
Earlier this year, House Republicans also introduced the Prohibition of Agricultural Land for the People’s Republic of China Act, aimed at stopping members of the Chinese Communist Party from buying or owning U.S. farmland.
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) previously introduced the Protecting Military Installations and Ranges Act to “restrict any effort” by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea “to buy U.S. land within 100 miles of a U.S. military installation, or 50 miles from military areas.”
Johnson said the Biden administration is “not engaging with us in Congress as much as I think some people would hope” but said the House China committee was acting in a “bipartisan” fashion and “putting aside the partisan slings and arrows instead to focus on the fact that the Chinese Communist Party is a thuggish, repressive regime that wants to remove America as the world’s superpower.”
State-level action
Beginning in 2016, Chinese real estate tycoon Sun Guangxin spent tens of millions of dollars buying up at least 140,000 acres of land in Texas near Del Rio — conveniently near Laughlin Air Force Base, which trains U.S. military pilots.
Sun said he planned to use an American subsidiary to build a wind farm, but state and national leaders from Texas sought to shut the project down over security concerns. Sun had been a former captain in the People’s Liberation Army.
Texas legislators are still working on a bill that would limit Chinese land ownership.
Similarly, Fufeng Group, a huge agricultural company with significant links to China’s government, purchased 370 acres as a location for its new wet corn mill in the agribusiness park just a short distance from Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota.
After months of consideration, CFIUS declined to block the project despite urging from North Dakota’s Republican senators and other congressional Republicans on Capitol Hill. The U.S. Air Force warned of the significant national security threat, and the Grand Forks City Council voted to end the project in February — only after CFIUS refused to act.
Johnson told the Washington Examiner that “I think most of this energy is better spent at the federal level — that’s not to say there is no role for state and local levels.”
The National Agricultural Law Center said, as of this month, “approximately eighteen states specifically forbid or limit nonresident aliens, foreign businesses and corporations, and foreign governments from acquiring or owning an interest in agricultural land within their state.”
The center’s list says Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin all have laws on the books restricting foreign ownership of land.
Micah Brown, a staff attorney at the center, told the Washington Examiner, “We’ve had a lot of movement at the state level,” noting, “We’ve had three states enact some kind of restriction in 2023, and we have three more that their legislature has passed or are awaiting a governor’s signature.” Brown added, “We’ve had over 30 states propose at least one piece of legislation that would restrict foreign ownership to some degree.”
Youngkin declared in the State of the Commonwealth in January that “Virginians, not the CCP, should own the rich and vibrant agricultural lands God has blessed us with.”
The governor asked the Virginia General Assembly to “send me a bill to prohibit dangerous foreign entities tied to the CCP from purchasing Virginia’s farmland.” In February, the Virginia legislature passed a bill banning the sale of farmland to “foreign adversaries” such as China.
The Chinese spy balloon traveled close to Montana’s Malmstrom Air Force Base, one of three U.S. Air Force bases maintaining and operating the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile.
Montana GOP state Sen. Kenneth Bogner introduced a bill earlier this year in the Montana legislature to address the Chinese land issue.
“Agriculture production land is essential to our critical infrastructure — it supports our economy here in Montana and helps feed the entire nation,” Bogner said while introducing the bill, adding, “We need to be proactive in preventing our adversaries from gaining advantages in influence and espionage.”
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DeSantis hopes Florida’s legislature will pass a bill limiting Chinese land ownership in the coming days.
“We don’t want to have holdings by hostile nations. If you look at the Chinese Communist Party, they’ve been very active gobbling up land,” DeSantis said in January. “And when they have interests that are opposed to ours and we see how they have wielded their authority, especially with President Xi, who’s taken a much more Marxist-Leninist turn, that is not in the best interest of Florida to have the Chinese Communist Party owning farmland, owning land close to military bases.”
