US to ban Chinese purchases of farmland, citing national security

U.S. Department of Agriculture chief Brooke Rollins announced Tuesday that the U.S. government will move to ban sales of farmland nationwide to buyers tied to China and other foreign adversaries, citing threats to national security and food security — an effort that casts uncertainty over property currently held by China-linked investors.

Asked whether the U.S. government would seek to take back existing land owned by Chinese investors, Rollins said they are looking at “every available option” as part of a clawback effort and that an executive order from the White House will probably follow “very soon.”

In a joint news conference with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem, Rollins said that the USDA will also work with state legislators to quickly push through laws that will ban further purchases, with a particular focus on parcels of land near U.S. military bases.

“With this announcement today we are taking this purpose and our American farmland back. American agriculture is not just about feeding our families but about protecting our nation and standing up to foreign adversaries who are buying our farmland, stealing our research and creating dangerous vulnerabilities,” said Rollins.

While the new plan also applies to adversaries such as Russia and Iran, it is largely aimed at China.

The percentage of total U.S. farmland owned by Chinese investors amounts to just 0.0003% and has declined sharply in recent years — down around 31% since 2021. China-linked investors currently own 265,000 acres of U.S. land, according to USDA data, much of which is tied to a single company — Smithfield Foods, which was acquired in 2013 by WH Group, a Chinese conglomerate led by tycoon Wan Long.

Smithfield on Tuesday said it had already reduced its land holdings to around 85,000 acres, selling more than 40,000 acres last year, and said most of its products are made and consumed in the United States. The company passed a 2013 national security review by the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).

“WH Group is not a Chinese state-owned enterprise and does not undertake any commercial activities on behalf of the Chinese government,” the company said in a statement. It added that Smithfield currently contracts with more than 1,300 farmers and employs some 34,000 people in the United States.

There is precedent for efforts to take back farmland linked to China. In October 2023, Arkansas ordered Chinese-owned seed producer Syngenta to sell 160 acres of U.S. farmland, citing national security. The firm finally sold the land in May, and was forced to pay a $280,000 fine for not disclosing its ownership. Part of the newly announced USDA plan includes raising such fines to the highest statutory maximum: 25% of the value of the invested land.

“I’m so proud of the fact that Arkansas was the first state in the country to kick a Chinese-owned company off of our farmland and out of our state, and we made them pay for it,” said Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the USDA news conference Tuesday.

The announcement of national plan to tighten farmland security comes as the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign collides with the agricultural sector’s ongoing reliance on migrant labor.

Asked about the strain on migrant laborers in the agricultural sector, Rollins said mass deportations would continue in a “strategic and intentional way,” adding that “there will be no amnesty.” She said there are “plenty” of workers already in the United States, pointing to the “34 million able-bodied adults currently on Medicaid.”

Rollins also said the Agriculture Department has removed 70 individuals and 550 entities tied to countries of concern from its contracts and research partnerships. The USDA did not provide further details about the entities and individuals.

At the news conference Tuesday, U.S. officials and Republican lawmakers described potential scenarios including Chinese surveillance of U.S. military equipment and troop movements.

There is no publicly known case of Chinese firms using U.S. farmland to conduct surveillance on military operations. Still, federal authorities have documented efforts by Chinese intelligence agencies to target American agriculture. Last month, two Chinese scientists were charged with smuggling a dangerous fungus into the United States that can infect and damage grain crops.

“No longer can foreign adversaries assume we’re not watching,” Hegseth said Tuesday. He added that the Pentagon would move to bar sales of farmland to foreign adversaries near military bases and said the effort would help secure the U.S. food supply for soldiers, “especially in a contingency.”

Critics of China-tied ownership also say that large-scale investment in U.S. farmland could give Beijing leverage over critical segments of the American food supply, particularly in times of crisis. Chinese firms currently control about 0.5% of the roughly 46 million acres of U.S. farmland held by foreign entities, a relatively small share compared with countries like Canada, whose companies account for nearly a third of foreign-owned agricultural land.

Lawmakers from both parties have recently moved to advance legislation aimed at blocking land purchases by Chinese China-tied firms. Last month, the House passed the Agricultural Risk Review Act, sponsored by Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), which would require the Agriculture Department to report foreign farmland acquisitions linked to adversarial nations.

Separately, the bipartisan Farmland Act — introduced in March by Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Mich.) and Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-Iowa) — would trigger federal review of large land deals involving foreign entities and create a public database of foreign-held agricultural land.

At the state level, Florida in 2023 barred Chinese citizens from purchasing land near critical infrastructure and military sites. In Montana, lawmakers passed a bill prohibiting the sale of land near military installations to foreign adversaries — just months after a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was seen drifting over the state.

Scrutiny of farmland acquisitions by China-tied entities has spiked since a controversial land deal in North Dakota. In 2022, Chinese-owned Fufeng Group purchased 370 acres for a corn milling facility roughly 12 miles from Grand Forks Air Force Base. Local officials ultimately blocked the project, citing national security concerns.

The case drew attention to loopholes in CFIUS regulations that allowed Chinese-linked firms to purchase land near military installations not formally designated as sensitive sites.

Rollins said that as part of the broader national security overhaul at the Agriculture Department, she would formally become a member of CFIUS effective Tuesday — giving her a voice in decisions about which foreign companies are permitted to invest in the United States.

“China, here’s your ticket. Do not pass go. Get the hell off American agriculture,” said Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who co-sponsored a Republican-led bill introduced in February that would permanently add the agriculture secretary to CFIUS.