Republicans Introduce Bill to Prevent CCP From Buying American Land

Not sure why it matters unless ownership refuses to invest in production or deliberately destroys food stocks. Other than that they certainly can't pick the land up and take it with them. Given recent activities of our Federal Government and sanctions (Russian Oligarchs) we can certainly take it away with little to no effort.

It is a bit troubling that congress wants this power to rest on the shoulders the President of the United States and specifically targets China yet has no qualms with other foreign entities and leaves it to the Secretary of Agriculture to impose the penalty.

 

I’m on board with this. CIFUS needs to be reviewing these transactions. Seems to have bi-partisan support.

China is buying up American farms. Washington wants to crack down. - POLITICO

 

Good point. The Senate version is massive 3 pages and basically gives the President power to enforce the investment percentage. Which means the Executive Branch will task the FDA, CIFUS, or some agency to review transactions and set uh oh… Regulations. Determination of CCP influence is going to be an interesting issue.

 

I agree it’s dumb to just target one country. Theoretically foreign governments and corrupt foreign money launderers (organized crime) should be blocked as well, not just from farm land but from real estate or other assets in general. Unfortunately there is a fine line. There were no calls to block Russian oligarch money, until after the invasion of Ukraine. You have scumbags like those LIV Golfers (along with Greg Norman and Donald Trump) taking in Saudi money. It’s not that easy to define who to “exclude” in a free market until a country is sanctioned.

 

While we're at it let's ban large corporations like Blackstone from buying residential. K thx.

 

I wanted to agree that it is a good idea but you make compelling points. Not sure it matters.

 

I don't love the idea of China buying tons of our land (especially land near military bases), but that might honestly be preferable to our government becoming the authority on who can and cannot own land in our country. That seems a dangerous precedent, to me.

If we're going to go down that route, I'd prefer a simpler restriction that is clearly defined and doesn't require some kind of bureaucratic determination. I would think a better option may be to limit the ownership of U.S. land to organizations or individuals with legal residence in the U.S., but I confess I haven't thought much about this to consider downside ramifications.

 

More anti-capitalism policies from Big Govt republicans.

I am not overly informed on this so I could be persuaded. I don’t like the targeting but if we had a reciprocation requirement for all countries… aka , you can buy here if we can buy there that might be ok to me.

 

I think the general idea is to prohibit foreign investment that threatens US national security interests.

It’s probably not terribly hard to articulate how broad ownership of US agriculture by entities associated with a country widely viewed as a foreign adversary threatens US national security (particularly in light of the reports of China buying up land near US missile bases, etc.).

It’s a bit harder to articulate what threat the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund overpaying professional golfers poses to the United States, or what material threat would be posed by - to pull random hypotheticals - an Emirati pension fund being investors in an office tower or a Swedish state-owned enterprise owning commercial property in the US.

 

We should nationalize all land (and sports competitions) held by private interests then, its the only way to guarantee our national security.

 

In theory I’m ok with disallowing “foreign ownership of land” as it is a legit national security concern - especially on issues like food supply and areas near airports and military bases. The problem is if you ban outright nation-state ownership, this can be easily evaded by the nation-state forming partnerships and other entities which are formed in the U.S. or in foreign countries. There is a cottage industry of money laundering - not much different from how organized crime moves money around. Look at how much Russian oligarchs were spending in the west, vast wealth, almost all of it ill gotten “nationalized” gains taken out of Russia. The westerners receiving that money were all too happy to take it.

I don’t think this restriction is compatible with our free market system, unless we decide a country is so against our interest they cannot be dealt with at all and thus money flows out of that country must be 100% sanctioned. The Russian foreign investments came to an immediate halt after Ukraine. Unfortunately there is too much U.S. investment to make this a plausible course to take against China. Russia was easy to sanction because their rule of law was so weak there was very little foreign investment there anyway, easy to seize oligarch assets when there is very little to lose in Russia. China on the other hand accounts for a double digit % of U.S. corporate revenues. So the tit-for-tat against China would be felt in a more severe way here.

 

How many acres of farmland are there? 37 million seems a lot but if there are 100s of billions it’s a drop in the bucket.

 

This kind of proposal isn’t intended to accomplish the same thing as sanctions (punishing a foreign entity) though. It’s based on the idea that some sectors pose unique concerns regarding security.

Do we particularly care whether a Chinese state-affiliated entity is the majority investor in a condo tower in Miami? Probably not. But having a large degree of control over US food production (what this would be intended to address) or being deeply embedded in the US defense industry supply chain (which is addressed by other policies) poses a different question.

 

And to add to what I noted before, industry or sector specific restrictions in foreign commerce are nothing unusual or new.

By way of example, if I want to sell a great set of plans for a push mower to China, no one cares. If I want to sell them schematics for how to manufacture a thermal gun sight, however, I need ITAR approval to do so.

 

I don’t disagree, I’m just suggesting it’s almost impossible to enforce in a free market system without sanctions.

For example, if you block China from directly owning pig farms, they could just do something like… buy Smithfield foods (the company that owns the farms). In the case of food, I think it’s more of a anti-trust issue. Big deals could certainly be blocked on national security or anti-trust (and solid arguments existed against approving the Smithfield deal), just not sure how you block “small deals” in a free market without having sanctions targeting a particular county (and if you impose restrictions on ownership targeting a particular country, the other country might basically view them as sanctions and react accordingly).

 

They appear to be using the land for electronic espionage.