Trump administration looks to ban Chinese groups from buying US farmland

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The Trump administration plans to ban Chinese groups to purchase agricultural lands in the United States, especially near military bases, out of increasing concern that its purchases undermine national security.

US Minister of Agriculture Brock Rollins said on Tuesday that the administration will work with government governments and local governments to take “rapid legislative and executive measures to prohibit the purchase of American agricultural lands by Chinese citizens and other foreign opponents.”

“It is not only related to the nutrition of our families, but rather to protect our nation and stand on foreign opponents who buy our agricultural lands, steal our research and create dangerous weaknesses in the same systems that preserve us.”

Speaking alongside Rollins, US Defense Secretary Beit Higseth said, “Foreign ownership of lands near strategic bases and American military establishments pose a serious threat to our national security.”

This declaration follows the increasing concerns of legislators in Capitol Hill and throughout the country about Chinese purchases of American agricultural lands in recent years, which has warned about their potential use of espionage. The American Committee of China in particular prompted an increase in scrutiny of the Chinese agricultural lands.

John Molinaar, the Republican president of the Chinese Committee in the House of Representatives, said this step was “a necessary step to protect both our cultivation and sovereignty.”

“The pattern of China to buy our agricultural lands is not just an economic play – it is a threat to national security,” Molinaar said. ))

As part of the efforts made to increase the audit of foreign purchases of American agricultural lands, Rollins said it would become a member of the Foreign Investment Committee in the United States [Cfius]It is a committee between agencies led by the effective treasury and which examines foreign investments in the United States because of the potential threats of national security.

Legionships want to grant CFIUS to check a wide range of incoming investments.

In 2024, President Joe Biden ordered a Chinese group that was running the encryption mining process in Wyoming to sell the ground run by computer servers because it was next to a base of American nuclear ballistic missiles. This was the first time that the United States used the committee to force a foreign entity to sell American territory.

Rollins said the administration will do everything in its power to “return” the lands that were already purchased by groups from China and other opponents of the United States.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture for 2023, Chinese entities have 27,736 acres of American agricultural lands, just less than 1 percent of the total foreign groups. Chinese purchases were concentrated in Texas, North Carolina, Missouri, Utah and Florida.

Chinese -owned agricultural lands are part of the increasing focus on the roads that Chinese groups can spy in the United States.

Legislators are concerned about everything from agricultural land to Chinese wind turbines that contain technology that some officials believe can facilitate electronic spy.

In recent years, the United States and its partners have increased in the Five Eyes Intelligence Network- Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand-general warnings about a group of Chinese investments in companies that can enable Beijing to conduct spy in countries.

The Chinese embassy in Washington was contacted to comment.