HomeAg NewsChina’s U.S. Farmland Buys Draw Renewed Attention

China’s U.S. Farmland Buys Draw Renewed Attention

China’s farmland buys in the U.S. are attracting new attention on Capitol Hill.

The House Select Committee on US-CCP Competition, chaired by Michigan Republican John Moolenaar has its eye on a Chinese EV battery firm’s land buy in that state. He says, “Gotion is a Chinese-based company that it is buying farmland. It is a hundred miles from a National Guard location where a lot of training is done.”

And despite Michigan’s subsidizing a Gotion battery plant on that farmland over local opposition; “Fortunately, there is a process, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. has jurisdiction over this project. And I hope that they will come back with a report that says, this is not the place for a Chinese-based plant.”

The Treasury-led ‘CFIUS’ looks at national security issues raised by foreign investment and now includes USDA’s Secretary Vilsack as a member. Moolenaar, interviewed on News Nation, says China’s presence here, especially near sensitive U.S. military facilities, is no small matter.

Moolenaar says, “We’ve seen hundreds of incidents of gate-crashing at military bases from foreign nationals, many of them Chinese.”

China’s U.S. land holdings are less than one percent of foreign-owned acres, but at 350-thousand acres in 2022, it is still a serious concern. USDA is trying to improve its data collection to study the impact of foreign land holdings on rural communities and the exact location of foreign-owned land.

Story by Matt Kaye/Berns Bureau; courtesy of NAFB News Service

- Advertisment -

Latest News