Biden administration officials expressed tentative support for efforts in Congress to restrict ownership of U.S. farmland by foreign adversaries during a recent hearing of the House Select Committee on U.S.-Chinese Communist Party Competition.
State, Defense, and Commerce officials came under repeated fire over the president’s strategy on China, but not on PRC ownership of U.S. farmland, where there was more agreement.
Here is Washington State Rep. Dan Newhouse on House legislation to broaden control over such ownership through the Treasury-chaired Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., or CFIUS.
Here is Commerce Assistant Secretary for Export Administration Thea Rozman Kendler.
While the Pentagon’s Assistant Secretary for Indo-Pacific Security Ely Ratner was a bit more direct.
Parallel Senate legislation requires USDA to have a permanent seat on CFIUS, which reviews national security impacts of foreign investments—including land buys near sensitive military sites, a concern heightened by China’s spy balloon flyover this year.
