Josh Hawley Introduces Bill Banning Chinese Corporations from Owning U.S. Farmland

Hawley
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Jacob Bliss
Washington, DC

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced legislation on Tuesday to ban Chinese corporations, in addition to any individuals associated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), from owning farmland in the United States.

Hawley introduced the This Land is Our Land Act to stop Chinese corporations and individuals associated with the CCP from owning farmland in the U.S., following through with what he promised to do last month, just days after a Chinese spy balloon flew over the continental U.S. for days — before it was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean by U.S. military.

“No Chinese corporation or individual associated with the CCP should be permitted to own American farmland,” Hawley stated. “It undermines the integrity of our nation’s food supply chain, it presents national security threats when the land is in close proximity to military installations, and it hurts American farmers.”

The senator’s legislation, if passed, would ultimately prohibit Chinese corporations and individuals affiliated with the CCP from being allowed to acquire or lease any U.S. agricultural land, require those prohibited by the bill to divest ownership of any U.S. agricultural land within two years, and establish civil fines and criminal penalties for noncompliance, including forfeiture.

The legislation defines agricultural land as:

(i) land used for farming, ranching, or timber production;

(ii) land used for food processing; and

(iii) land that—

(I) is currently idle; and

(II) was used within the previous 5 years for farming, ranching, or timber production.

Hawley acknowledged that China’s ownership of U.S. agricultural land has “dramatically” over the past decade, as the Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese entities held more than 338,000 acres of land at the end of 2020 — a 350 percent increase from the 75,000 acres held at the end of 2010.

The recent push from Hawley also comes as an internal U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) memo — obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Agri-Pulse — revealed that the agency failed to properly oversee the foreign acquisition of U.S. agricultural land across the country through the Agriculture Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA) of 1978.

AFIDA requires that any “foreign person who acquires, disposes of, or holds an interest in United States agricultural land must disclose such transactions and holdings to the Secretary of Agriculture” within 90 days after the date of each transaction. The memo indicated:

Failure to report, late-filed reports, or incomplete, misleading, or false information can result in a penalty of up to 25 percent of the market value of the foreign person’s interest in the land. The data collected is used to develop an annual report to Congress on foreign investment in U.S. agriculture.

[…]

Due to limited staff (and a new program manager), no penalties were assessed between 2015-18 as the top priority was making sure the annual report to Congress was as accurate as possible… [Emphasis added.]

The internal memo also indicated that, as of December 31, 2020, foreign persons have an interest in 37.6 million acres of U.S. agricultural, which is about 2.9 percent of all privately-held agricultural land and 1.7 percent of all land in the United States. Chinese-primary investors alone own 325,686 acres in 27 states, which is “slightly less than 1 percent of foreign-held agricultural acres.”

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.

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