Trump Administration Banning Communist China From Owning Farm Land, Halt Dangerous Research

Chinese Communist China owns 349,442 acres of farmland in the USA, up 82% over three years, and most of it is near our military installations.

Taking It Back: The Trump administration has launched a nationwide effort to take back U.S. farmland from Chinese Communist Party-linked owners. China owns 349,442 acres of farmland in the US which is up 82% over 3 years and much of it is near our military bases! pic.twitter.com/ma6aXbQSQ9

— John Cremeans (@JohnCremeansX) July 8, 2025

No American may own a square inch in China, so why do we allow Chinese nationals to own square miles here?

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) July 8, 2025

"American farmland should remain in the hands of American farmers.”
Republican @SenatorRicketts, Democrat @SenFettermanPA and others are teaming up on legislation that would push strict oversight on foreign countries buying American farmland. China owned around 350,000 acres of… pic.twitter.com/pvBQxsiCP4

— Fox News (@FoxNews) June 5, 2025

China owns 349,442 acres of farmland in the US — up 82% over 3 years.

The choice for voters is clear: A Trump-Vance admin to protect our food supply, farmers, and critical infrastructure; or a Harris-Walz admin to coddle and embolden the Chinese Communist Party. pic.twitter.com/fxNy3h5E85

— Lee Zeldin (@LeeMZeldin) September 24, 2024

Trump admin launches National Farm Security Action Plan to ban China’s farmland purchases, halt dangerous research

By Josh Christenson, NY Post, July 8, 2025

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is launching an aggressive, multi-agency effort to protect America’s farmlands, food supply and critical research from influence and control by US adversaries — including banning the purchase of farmland by Chinese nationals.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins joined several top officials — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and trade adviser Peter Navarro — on Tuesday to announce the National Farm Security Action Plan.

“American agriculture is not just about feeding our families, but about protecting our nation and standing up to foreign adversaries who are buying our farmland, stealing our research, and creating dangerous vulnerabilities in the very systems that sustain us,” Rollins told reporters at USDA headquarters.

Counties in the US where China owns farmland. Many are strategically located near military installations. China owns around 350k acres of land across the US.

Multiple states including Florida, South Dakota, Missouri, and Georgia passed laws restricting China from buying up our… pic.twitter.com/7IryrCa0l8

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 19, 2025

The secretary noted that Trump would “likely” be signing another executive order “very soon” to respond to the foreign encroachment, which would couple with federal and state legislative efforts aimed at safeguarding US agricultural research from malign foreign influence, intellectual property theft, and the growing threat of agroterrorism.

At least 700 foreign nationals in “countries of concern” like China will be swiftly kicked off of contracts and research agreements with the USDA — and further regulatory actions will remove more than 550 concerning foreign entities.
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The move comes after a pair of Chinese researchers were federally charged in June after trying to smuggle a dangerous crop-killing fungus into the US, according to the FBI.

“Both of them have ties to the CCP,” Bondi said Tuesday of the romantically involved researchers at the University of Michigan. “Just days later, we arrested another Chinese citizen for sending packages of concealed biological materials into the United States.

“It’s going to stop. FBI has opened over 100 bio-smuggler investigations in recent years. We will prosecute you. We will hold you accountable.”

Rollins also said her department and other agencies will help ban the purchase of farmland by Chinese nationals — and “claw back” properties already bought.

“Too much American land is owned by nationals of adversarial countries, and more than 265,000 acres in the United States are owned by Chinese nationals, much of which is located near critical US military bases,” she had said Monday.
A man in a suit gives a briefing at the Pentagon on the Israel-Iran war. 6
Rollins was joined at a press conference at USDA headquarters Tuesday by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi and trade adviser Peter Navarro. ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA

At least 19 of those installations — from Florida to Hawaii — were close enough to allow the Chinese Communist Party to surveil US military operations via drones, radar, infra-red scanning or other tracking technologies, a Post review found.

The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act will also be reformed to hike civil penalties for late or false filings to 25% of the fair market value of the land.

As part of the shift back toward “American-made technology, research and innovation,” the USDA will now partner with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which in 2018 received a grant proposal that laid out a “blueprint” for creating the virus causing COVID-19, according to scientists, lawmakers, public health and intelligence officials.

The grant proposal, which was never funded, “downplayed” how some of the research would be taking place at the now-infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Illustration of a US map showing Chinese-owned farmland near military bases.

“Too much American land is owned by nationals of adversarial countries, and more than 265,000 acres in the United States are owned by Chinese nationals, much of which is located near critical US military bases,” Rollins said.

Some public health experts, such as former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Dr. Robert Redfield, have since suggested that even unfunded projects can be tested under other research grants.

The USDA itself had been collaborating on “highly pathogenic” bird flu experiments with a researcher affiliated with one of the Wuhan lab’s divisions focused on special pathogens — before being exposed by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) last year.

A departmental spokesperson confirmed Tuesday that Rollins has ended the collaboration, which was receiving up to $1 million in US taxpayer funding to conduct the experiments from April 2021 to March 2026.

As part of the action plan, the USDA’s food stamp program will also be reviewed to ensure transnational criminal gangs aren’t “stealing from the poor and the American taxpayer by cloning point-of-sale devices and card skimming.”
Aerial view of farmland with a red circle highlighting a proposed factory site. 6
Rollins said the US Department of Agriculture and other agencies will be banning the purchase of US farmland by Chinese nationals. Google Earth

Retailers complicit in SNAP or other benefit fraud schemes will also lose their funding. The USDA spends more than $405 million per day on the various programs.

Additionally, the USDA will begin compiling lists of supply chain items for the agriculture industry that come from foreign adversaries and propose solutions.

“’The Art of War,’ a book [by] Sun Tzu, centuries-old, says that the acme of warfare is to win without firing a shot,” Navarro told reporters Tuesday. “You fast forward to a book that was written by two high-ranking military officials in China called ‘Unrestricted Warfare.’ And you understand that we are indeed in a new world where kinetic warfare, it’s not the first choice of our rivals anymore.”

“Rather, it is things like sending us seeds or trying to steal our seeds or trying to change the seeds. It is acquiring our supply chain in agriculture. It’s setting up spy shops on land next to military bases,” the trade adviser said.

“The Chinese bought Smithfield Foods and basically control about one-eighth of the world’s pork supply now.”