The GOP-controlled House won bipartisan support to set up a select committee on activities of the Chinese Communist Party, including the CCP’s purchase of U.S. farmland. The Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the CCP will look into China’s trade, economic, human rights, and security threats overseas and here at home.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy; “How do we bring our jobs back from China to America? How do we secure our intellectual property? How do we make sure our farmland is protected? All of that would be brought up within this committee.”
Pennsylvania’s John Joyce; “The acquisition of farmland to the consideration of rare earth minerals industry, into one consolidated outside firm, the Chinese Communist Party continues to pose these challenges to America, as we speak.”
And Florida Republican Micheal Waltz; “Spying on the Federal Reserve, flooding our key institutions, including academia with money, buying up farmland.”
Iowa GOP Senator Chuck Grassley, having surgery this week for an injured hip, and Wisconsin Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin introduced a bill last year requiring USDA to report on the impact of foreign U.S. farmland purchases.
Most such buys are by U.S. allies Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany, but China, Russia, and Iran accounted for 200,000 acres total in 2019—most of it by China and its Smithfield Foods purchase.
