America First Policy Institute (AFPI) has released a report by Adam Savit, director of the institute's China Policy Initiative, which found the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has significantly increased its purchasing of U.S. agricultural land in the last 13 years. Legislative bills have been proposed to push back against Chinese purchase of American lands. Savit suggests “strategic decoupling” and “reciprocity” should guide policies regarding this issue.
According to the AFPI, the CCP has attempted to acquire American farmland as part of their global strategy to overtake America. The CCP has tried to infiltrate food supply chains and employs other economic tactics to combat American dominance.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm Service, Chinese investors' ownership of American farmland went from 13,720 acres in 2010 to 352,140 acres in 2020, a 5,300% increase. The land is worth approximately $1.9 billion.
Savit said many states have preventative measures against Chinese investors purchasing American farmland, but "many of these laws were never used, poorly implemented, circumvented by the use of U.S.-based subsidiaries or undermined by repeals and amendments due to pressure from business groups." This year, 23 state legislatures have introduced at least 53 bills that block CCP access to American farmland.
Savit argues the two main strategies to use against the CCP on this issue are strategic decoupling, which is "the disentangling of our critical supply chains, such as those securing our food, from the CCP and other adversarial nations," and reciprocity, which "dictates the CCP and anyone tied to it should have no access to any institution or opportunity in America beyond that which we have access to in China."
Savit gave the example of Iowa House Bill 211, which is "a bill for an act prohibiting the government of, and persons and entities from, the People's Republic of China from acquiring real property located in the state."
Another bill, Texas House Bill 1075 seeks to ban all foreign countries from purchasing land.
In Arizona, AZ HB 2376 seeks to ban foreign entities from purchasing agricultural land only, which Savit includes the definition from the USDA: "land used for forestry production, farming, ranching or timber production." Savit describes two Tennessee bills, TN HB40 and TN SB122, as using the concept of reciprocity.
"It prohibits foreign ownership of real property in this state by nonresident aliens and foreign entities if the laws of the country where such aliens reside or such entities are located prohibit citizens of the U.S. or its territories or possessions from purchasing real property located within that country," Savit said.
A Utah bill was passed in March that will restrict "foreign entities" described as, “a company that the United States secretary of defense is required to identify and report as a military company under Section 1260H” of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which Savit says will include many CCP investor companies.
Savit praised states for recognizing the threat the CCP poses in regard to the purchase of American agricultural land. He said the state legislatures act as “laboratories of democracy,” so the federal government may witness experimentation with such bills to use as examples. Savit said there is a "positive trend" happening as many states are aware of the CCP's infiltrating tactics.
