Unlock the Witte House newsletter for free
The Trump government plans to prohibit Chinese groups to buy agricultural land in the US, in particular in the vicinity of military bases, from the rising concern that their purchases undermine national security.
The American agricultural secretary Brooke Rollins said on Tuesday that the administration would collaborate with national and local authorities to “take rapid legislative and executive action to ban the purchase of American agricultural land by Chinese nationals and other foreign opponents”.
“American agriculture is not only about feeding our families, but about protecting our nation and the emergence of foreign opponents who buy our agricultural land, steal our research and create dangerous vulnerabilities in the systems that support us,” said Rollins, revealing what they called the national action plan for agricultural security.
Speaking in addition to Rollins, the American defense minister Pete Hegseeth said: “Foreign ownership of land in the vicinity of strategic bases and American military installations is a serious threat to our national security”.
The announcement follows increasing concerns of legislators on Capitol Hill and throughout the country about Chinese purchases of American agricultural land in recent years, which causes an alarm about their possible use for espionage. Especially the US House China Committee has insisted on increased control of Chinese acquisitions of agricultural land.
John Moolenaar, the Republican chairman of the China Committee House, said that the move was a “necessary step to protect both our agriculture and our sovereignty”.
“The pattern of China to buy our agricultural land is not just an economic piece – it’s a threat of national security,” said Moolenaar. “We cannot allow China to buy American farms and to jeopardize American families. That threat becomes even more acute when those land purchases take place near military bases.”
As part of the attempt to increase the investigation of foreign purchases of the American agricultural land, Rollins said that she would become a member of the Commission for Foreign Investments in the US [Cfius]An influential inter-agency panel from the Treasury that investigates foreign investments in the US for possible threats for national security.
The legislators want to grant CFIUS the authority to investigate a broader range of incoming investments.
In 2024, President Joe Biden ordered a Chinese group that carried out a crypto-min operation in Wyoming to sell the country where the computer servers operated because it was besides a basis that our nuclear ballistic missiles houses. It was the first time that the US had used the committee to force a foreign entity to sell American country.
Rollins said that the administration would do everything to “clap claw back” that had already been purchased by groups from China and other American opponents.
According to the figures from the Ministry of Agriculture 2023, Chinese entities had 277,336 hectares of American agricultural land, slightly less than 1 percent of the total of foreign groups. The Chinese purchases were concentrated in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, Utah and Florida.
The research of agricultural land in Chinese is part of a broader growing focus on ways in which Chinese groups can perform spy in the US.
The laws are concerned about everything, from agricultural land to Chinese wind turbines that contain technology that, according to some officials, can facilitate electronic espionage.
In recent years, the US and its partners in the Five Eyes Intelligence sharing Network-Groot-Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand also have increased public warnings about a series of Chinese investments in companies that can enable Beijing to make espionage in the countries.
The Chinese embassy in Washington has been approached for comment.
