Republican governors concerned with the “imminent national security threat of the Chinese Communist Party (“CCP”)” acquiring real estate throughout the United States asked the Biden administration and congressional leaders on Monday to take responsibility and address foreign ownership of private American land.
Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders led a group of 17 state governors, including Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida, in a letter stating, “National security demands a national response from national leaders. The responsibility is now with you — follow the lead of our States and prevent CCP amassing of American lands.”
“For too long, we have allowed dangerous and adversarial governments to infiltrate our country. Our States will tolerate such allowances no longer. The Biden Administration must reckon with the fact that such entities are plain threats to our national security, our farmers, and our citizenry. This is especially true since the CCP enacted a law in 2017 requiring Chinese citizens abroad to collaborate with Chinese security officials on intelligence work — no questions asked,” the letter to President Biden and Congress says.
The letter posted by the Republican Governors Association (RGA) declared, “It is no secret the communist regime in China is acquiring swaths of real property throughout the United States.” The governors cited an example of “Gotion, Inc., a subsidiary of Chinese-controlled Gotion High-Tech, Inc., buying “two hundred and seventy acres of land in Green Charter Township, Michigan, not far from the Camp Grayling National Guard facility.” Adding that the “Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States declined to block — or even review — this plainly alarming transaction.”
The letter continued, “Where the Biden Administration has failed to address the threat at hand, states have stepped into the breach to protect this country’s most valued resource — our people.”
The RGA shared how states have taken action, citing that in “2023, a bipartisan group of eleven states enacted foreign ownership laws, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia.”
Huckabee wrote that Arkansas became the “first state in the country to act under such a law, ordering Syngenta Seeds, LLC, (“Syngenta”) to divest of one-hundred and sixty acres of land in Craighead County, Arkansas. Syngenta is a wholly owned subsidiary of the China National Chemical Corporation, Ltd., — an entity recognized by the U.S. Department of Defense as a ‘Chinese Military Company.’”
In response to the RGA letter, the Arkansas Times reported that this new “Red Scare” of the CCP “snatching up huge chunks of agricultural land in a play to take over our food system and bring the United States to its knees” is unfounded.
Digging deeper into CCP land ownership, NBC reported in August that their review “of thousands of documents filed with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, however, shows very few purchases by Chinese buyers in the past year and a half — fewer than 1,400 acres in a country with 1.3 billion acres of agricultural land. In fact, the total amount of U.S. agricultural land owned by Chinese interests is less than three-hundredths of 1%.”
However, NBC admitted their “review also reveals a federal oversight system in which reporting of foreign ownership is lax and enforcement minimal.”
Not to over-react to the CCP land buys, or appear xenophobic, the governors firmly stated, “This is not about where anyone is from. Our states welcome Chinese Americans and anyone else who has escaped foreign oppression for American freedom. This is about where your loyalties lie. We simply cannot trust those who pledge allegiance to a hostile foreign power.”
The governors did acknowledge in closing their letter that they were “heartened to see some in Congress advance legislation which would mitigate” the security threat. They added that they will continue to “encourage Congressional action to codify our stance into federal law. Until Congress passes such legislation; we urge the Biden Administration to use all available tools to prevent the continued acquisition of American lands by adversarial foreign governments and entities.”
Joining Sanders, DeSantis, and Abbott on the letter are Republican Governors Brian Kemp (Ga.), Brad Little (Idaho), Kim Reynolds(Iowa), Governor-elect Jeff Landry (La.), Greg Gianforte (Mont.), Jim Pillen (Neb.), Doug Burgum (N.D.), Kevin Stitt (Okla.), Henry McMaster (S.C.), Kristi Noem (S.D.) Bill Lee (Tenn.), Glenn Youngkin (Va.), Jim Justice (W.V.), and Mark Gordon (Wy.).
