U.S. States Cut Off Chinese Companies From Land Ownership

State lawmakers are producing a wave of legislation aimed at stopping what they say is a clear and growing danger to national security — land purchases by Chinese citizens and companies.

More than two thirds of states — primarily controlled by Republicans — have enacted or are considering laws limiting or barring foreign ownership of land.

China is “an enemy,” South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican frequently touted as a potential running mate for Donald Trump, told a hearing of the state House Committee on Agriculture last month. “They are buying up our entire food supply chain and when America can’t feed itself and we rely on another country to feed us it becomes a national security issue.”

Last month, Noem signed into law a bill that bars China and five other countries from purchasing farmland in the state.

These restrictions are being wielded as a political cudgel by Republicans in a year where Donald Trump is almost certain to make economic warfare against China a pillar of his presidential campaign and down-ballot contests. In February, the former president threatened to impose tariffs of more than 60 percent on Chinese goods.

They’re just the latest sign that national political currents, when it comes to China, are filtering down to state capitals. Governors of all political stripes have largely shut off trade missions to the communist country, after regularly making the trek to Beijing in the first two decades of this century.

Backers of land purchase restrictions say the federal government is unable or unwilling to protect states from growing threats from Beijing on U.S. soil.

Land purchases “are not being adequately controlled by the federal government, so states are acting on their own,” said Indiana Republican state Rep. Kendell Culp, whose bill to bar farmland purchases by entities linked to five foreign countries passed the state Senate last month and has returned to the House for consideration. That list includes North Korea and Iran, but “concern about China exceeds that of the other four countries,” as a potential risk to the state’s food security, Culp said in an interview.