States Try Bans To Keep China From Upping Its Share Of U.S. Farmland - From Less Than 1%
Several state legislatures have approved or considered bills to restrict the foreign ownership of agricultural land in the United States. via Associated Press
China’s emergence as the United States’ new Cold War-style global rival has spilled over into the state legislatures and Congress in the form of restrictions on who can own U.S. farmland.
Florida on Thursday became the latest state to pass a law restricting land purchases by foreign nationals or officials of certain countries, including China.
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While the bill applies to more than agricultural land and prohibits purchases near critical infrastructure and military installations, proponents have cited the need to protect farmland as a major rationale for the bills.
Gov. Ron DeSantis, a likely presidential candidate, accused China of “gobbling up” land in January.
“That is not in the best interests of Florida to have the Chinese Communist Party owning farmland, owning land close to military bases,” DeSantis said.
But data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show holdings by Chinese investors and partners make up a minuscule amount of foreign-owned farmland and even less of total U.S. agricultural land.
“That is not in the best interests of Florida to have the Chinese Communist Party owning farmland, owning land close to military bases.” - Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.)
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According to the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, foreigners held only 3.1% of American agricultural land at the end of 2021, the latest data available. Of that foreign-owned land, Canada-linked investors accounted for almost a third, 31%, while those connected with China made up only 0.96% or 383,935 acres. That’s roughly 0.03% of all of the farmland in the United States.
In 2020, the Chinese proportion of foreign-held ag land was 0.94%, and in 2011, 0.27%, according to HuffPost calculations based on USDA data.
“They’re a fraction of U.S. farmland,” said Daniel Griswold, an adjunct scholar with the libertarian Cato Institute specializing in trade and immigration policy.
That hasn’t stopped lawmakers at the state and federal level from proposing restrictions ranging from stopping foreign companies from buying land to, as critics said the Florida bill would do, discriminating against Chinese Americans by prohibiting them from buying land if they are “domiciled” in China and not a U.S. citizen or lawful resident.
At a committee hearing in April, Jingrong Liu, a business owner, said the bill recalled the incarceration of Japanese Americans in World War II. “I will live in terror if something happened between China and the U.S.,” he said. “What will happen to us?”
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“They’re a fraction of U.S. farmland.” - Daniel Griswold, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute
In Texas, the state Senate in April passed a bill banning companies and “governmental entities” headquartered in China, Russia, North Korea and Iran from buying property in the state. In Utah, Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, signed a bill banning Chinese companies with ties to the military from buying land in the state.
Overall, about 18 states have restrictions on the books for foreign ownership of farmland in their states, and a majority of states were poised to consider new or tighter laws in 2023, according to the National Agricultural Law Center.
“This is an issue that kind of blows hot and cold over the years. It just seems to be very hot right now,” Griswold said. “The problem is they are taking a sledgehammer after a problem that requires a few nails and a hammer.”
For Asian Americans, the appetite for such laws, often bipartisan, is worrisome, coming after being singled out for violence in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and carrying echoes of the discriminatory “alien land laws” that kept them from owning land in the 19th century.
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At the federal level, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), for example, called his bill restricting purchases of any kind of real estate by Chinese companies and citizens the “Not One More Inch Act.”
Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.), the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), left, and Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), right, were among the leaders of the caucus group signing a statement against land ownership bans based on nationality. Bill Clark via Getty Images
“What alarms us is the impact of anti-China fearmongering on Chinese immigrant communities and the erection of unfair barriers to their pursuit of the American Dream solely because of their country of origin,” the leadership of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus said in February.
“We speak out now as we have seen policies like this before in our nation’s history. Such policies targeted at individual citizens echo xenophobic alien land laws targeting Asian immigrants — in the 1800s when anti-Chinese sentiment culminated in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, or during World War II when tensions with Japan led to the stripping of land ownership rights from Japanese immigrants and the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans.”
Some ban advocates point to national security concerns. That fear was heightened in the wake of the Chinese spy balloon incident earlier this year and a proposal by a Chinese company in 2022 to buy land for a corn milling plant near Grand Forks Air Base in North Dakota. The sale ultimately was stopped by the Grand Forks city council.
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But Griswold and others say those concerns can be dealt with either by using the current review process triggered by sensitive foreign investments or purchases of real estate, the multi-agency Council on Foreign Investment in the United States, or tweaking that process slightly.
“We speak out now as we have seen policies like this before in our nation’s history.” - statement from the leaders of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus
Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), in addition to proposing a bill restricting ag land buys from most Chinese, Russian, North Korean and Iranian nationals, has advocated for adding the Agriculture Department to the CFIUS group.
On Friday, The Associated Press reported the Treasury Department, one of the CFIUS agencies, was set to propose a rule requiring government approval for any foreign citizens and companies to buy land within 100 miles of eight military installations across the country.
Ultimately, though, there’s no national security or economic rationale for blanket bans of foreign ownership, according to Griswold. But there is another explanation for the heightened interest in them.
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Source: HuffPost
