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By Shane Croucher
Senior Editor
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China warned the Trump administration that the move to ban it and other foreign adversaries from purchasing farmland in the U.S. "will only backfire."
"The United States overstretched the concept of national security in restraining other countries' and entities' rights to purchase land," Mao Ning, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said at a press briefing on Wednesday.
Mao said the ban, part of the seven-point "National Farm Security Action Plan" unveiled by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday is "against international trade rules."
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"We urge the United States to stop politicizing economic and trade affairs," Mao said.
How Much US Farmland Does China Own?
Foreign ownership of American farmland, particularly by Chinese individuals and firms, has come under increasing scrutiny over the past couple of years.
U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows that foreign persons held an interest in nearly 45 million acres of American agricultural land at the end of 2023, accounting for 2 percent of all land in the country, and 3.5 percent of all privately held agricultural land.
Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland is limited in scale. Chinese primary investor filers reported owning 277,336 acres of agricultural land, USDA data up to December 31, 2023, showed, a tiny fraction of the total.
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But it is seen as a grave national security threat to the U.S, particularly as the great power competition with China heats up over issues including trade, territorial disputes in the Indo-Pacific, artificial intelligence, Taiwanese sovereignty, Russia's war in Ukraine, and more.
The USDA noted a recent scheme involving foreign nationals—including a Chinese Communist Party member—who are accused by federal prosecutors of smuggling a noxious fungus into the U.S. via a research lab in the country.
In its release, the USDA said the scheme "highlighted a disturbing trend: America's enemies are playing the long game—infiltrating our research, buying up our farmland, stealing our technology, and launching cyberattacks on our food systems.
"These actions expose strategic vulnerabilities in America's food and agriculture supply chain," the USDA release said.
USDA National Security Plan
Rollins said in a statement outlining the new national security plan for agriculture that "we'll never let foreign adversaries control our land, our labs, or our livelihoods."
Her department's plan includes tackling ownership by foreign adversaries, investing in the domestic supply chain and working with non-adversarial foreign partners to fill gaps, and taking on foreign criminal gangs who defraud food assistance programs.
It also has measures to prioritize domestic agriculture in USDA investments into research and securing it against infiltration by foreign adversaries, as well as evaluating all USDA programs to ensure they meet Trump's "America First" agenda.
Moreover, the plan will focus on strengthening biosecurity to protect plant and animal health, and protecting critical infrastructure against cybersecurity threats.
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