Trump administration looks to ban sale of U.S. farmland to Chinese buyers

The Trump administration is moving to ban the sale of American farmland to buyers from China and other countries deemed adversaries, citing national security concerns.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said during a news conference Tuesday that the administration also would work to “claw back what has already been purchased by China and other foreign adversaries.”

Chinese investors own fewer than 300,000 acres of agricultural land in the United States — just 0.02% of the nation’s agricultural land.

None of it is in Pennsylvania, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

But Rollins and others who spoke at Tuesday’s news conference — including U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Republican from Centre County whose district includes Armstrong County — said foreign adversaries could use U.S. farmland to disrupt the nation’s food supply chain and harm Americans.

“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 in the very systems that sustain us,” Rollins said.

“Farm and food security is national security,” added Thompson, who chairs the House Committee on Agriculture.

Officials said recent events have highlighted the critical need for action.

Last month, federal prosecutors charged two Chinese researchers with smuggling a crop-killing fungus into the United States.

The fungus, Fusarium graminearum, causes a disease called Fusarium head blight that can wipe out cereal crops such as wheat, barley and maize and rice. It inflicts $1 billion in losses annually on U.S. wheat and barley crops, according to the USDA.

Nicknamed “vomitoxin” because it’s known for causing livestock to throw up, it also can cause diarrhea, abdominal pain, headache and fever in animals and people.

One of the suspects said he planned to use the fungus for research at a University of Michigan lab. Researchers often bring foreign plants, animals and even strains of fungi to the United States to study them, but they must file certain permits to do so.

Authorities said the two Chinese researchers had not done so.

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Braddock, posted about the issue Tuesday on social media. Last month, Fetterman cosponsored a bill to strengthen oversight of foreign purchases of U.S. farmland.

“I hope many would agree the Chinese government and other U.S. adversaries should own ZERO agricultural land in our great country. This is really a national security issue + also a food security issue,” Fetterman said, adding that he was proud to partner with U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., on the bill to amend the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act.

Foreign investors own about 45 million acres, or 3.5%, of the nation’s agricultural land, according to the USDA data.

In Pennsylvania, about 2.3% of the agricultural land — or just over 400,000 acres — is owned by foreign investors, with ones from Canada (about 129,000 acres), Germany (53,000 acres), the United Kingdom (50,000 acres) and the Netherlands (25,000 acres) leading the way.

Most of that land — 333,000 acres — is forestland, while a lesser amount is used for cropland, pastures and other uses, according to the USDA.

The Associated Press contributed.