Fetterman, Ricketts Join Forces to Counter China’s Threat to US Farming

Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts and Democrat Sen. John Fetterman are joining forces to introduce bipartisan legislation to combat Communist China’s threat to American farming.  

“It’s not just about the number of acres that they [the Chinese] own, but the fact that they own it around Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota or Fort Liberty in North Carolina. They’re buying it around sensitive military installations,” Ricketts, who represents Nebraska, said to Fox News Digital. He said that American farmland should not be a “tool that our adversaries, like Communist China, can use to attack us from inside our own country.” 

“I hope many would agree the Chinese government and other U.S. adversaries should own ZERO agricultural land in our great country. This is really a national security issue and also a food security issue. Proud to partner with @SenatorRicketts on this,” Pennsylvania’s Fetterman posted on the social media platform X.  

The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Improvements Act would codify the findings of the Government Accountability Office that say that enhancing efforts to collect, track, and share information about foreign investments in U.S. agricultural land “could better identify national security risks,” according to a report by the office.  

Ricketts told Fox News Digital: “We are at the most dangerous point in our history right now since World War II. We have to be investing in our military. We have to be supporting our friends around the world that are pushing back on these dictators. Communist China is one of them.”  

According to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, China holds 277,336 acres of U.S. land as of Dec. 31, 2023. This is almost 1% of all acres held by foreign entities. Other countries that have larger landholdings include Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany.  

The Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Improvements Act seeks to increase the flow of information between the U.S. Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and the USDA and would require the disclosure of all foreign persons or entities holding more than a 1% interest in American agricultural land. It will also set up a deadline for the USDA to set up an online system for tracking those foreign agricultural investments, according to a statement released by Ricketts’ office.   

The act is being proposed at the same time two Chinese citizens are being held in federal custody after being accused of smuggling biological materials into the United States. Those materials have the potential to cause “reproductive defects in humans and livestock,” according to the Department of Justice.  

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