The U.S. government moved this week to shore up national security vulnerabilities stemming from China-linked land purchases in America, launching the initiative in a high-profile press conference with senior Trump administration officials and governors from several states.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins described American farming as “under threat from criminals, from political adversaries, and from hostile regimes that understand our way of life as a profound and existential threat to themselves,” during the Tuesday press conference.
Other Trump cabinet officials at the event included Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
The Department of Agriculture issued an action plan on Tuesday laying out several initiatives designed to restrict Chinese entities’ ability to purchase farm land, shore up the U.S. food supply, and prevent foreign adversaries from taking advantage of USDA programs. It said that the USDA will sign an agreement with the Treasury Department-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to jointly review land purchases and other transactions tied to foreign adversaries.
Chinese entities owned 277,000 acres of farmland in the U.S. at the end of 2023, the USDA said in a report. That is slightly less than one percent of foreign farmland holdings, the report stated.
The Trump administration’s rollout took place against the backdrop of growing concern about Chinese companies’ purchases of land near sensitive military sites over the past several years.
Those worries led to a spate of state-level laws barring land purchases by Chinese nationals and actions to block such purchases or unwind those that have taken place already.
A Chinese food processing giant’s purchase of 300 acres of farmland for a corn mill in North Dakota was stymied in 2023, after local officials sounded the alarm about that parcel’s proximity to an Air Force Base.
In 2024, the Biden administration blocked a Chinese cryptocurrency firm from purchasing land near Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, which houses part of America’s nuclear arsenal.
One of the most significant announcements from the USDA plan launched this week is that of a reform to the process by which foreign agricultural land ownership is disclosed.
Under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act, a law passed in 1978, foreign investors who acquire farmland in the U.S. are subject to mandatory disclosures.
But the current filing system is viewed as inadequate. USDA will launch a database for reports that include geospatial information and the purpose of the land purchases. The action plan stated that it has already launched a portal through which farmers can submit tips about land purchases with possible links to foreign adversaries. The department also said that it would work with Congress and the executive branch to bar foreign adversary-linked land purchases.
The USDA action plan also outlines efforts to protect the agriculture industry from cyberattacks and the development of an “agro-defense workforce” comprising professionals trained in agricultural security matters.
National security experts have expressed alarm about how land owned by Chinese entities could be used in attacks on critical infrastructure and military sites, citing recent incidents in which Ukraine and Israel reportedly launched drones from within Russia and Iran, respectively, in surprise attacks.
“This is long overdue for the national security implications of farmland ownership and access to critical infrastructure to finally be acted upon,” said Michael Lucci, the founder of State Armor, a nonprofit that has pushed state governments to enact restrictions on land purchases by Chinese entities.
