- USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins says the Trump administration is exploring ways to prevent China from purchasing U.S. farmland.
- She highlighted concerns over CCP influence, particularly near military outposts.
- Rollins confirmed the USDA is seeking a federal solution and noted some states have passed laws blocking Chinese land purchases.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says President Trump’s administration is exploring ways to prevent China from purchasing American farmland, Breitbart News reports. Rollins says Americans are “no doubt” concerned about China acquiring U.S. farmland, especially from loyalists of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
She added that the USDA is seeking a federal solution to prohibit the CCP from buying American farmland.
“A lot of that land is around some of our military outposts. So we’re in a really, really important conversation right now on how to push that back,” Rollins told Breitbart.
Rollins has worked with several states to pass legislation blocking China from purchasing farmland.
Last year, South Dakota and Florida passed bills restricting Chinese nationals and companies from acquiring land.
Kristi Noem, the former governor of South Dakota who now serves as Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, expressed her concerns during a House Committee on Agriculture hearing in March 2024.
“The Chinese Communist Party is not our friend; they’re not our partner, and they’re not our ally. They’re our enemy,” Noem said. “And they’re a rapidly expanding national security threat that can’t be ignored. So let me be clear, they’re buying up our entire food supply chain, and when America can’t feed itself and when we rely on other members of another country to feed us, it becomes a national security issue.”
Secretary Rollins credits President Trump for highlighting China’s threat when he was campaigning for president in 2015. She said that before Trump, “people weren’t really talking about China.”
Rollins believes a “wholesale across-the-board very deep look at where China’s influence is, especially in the last decade, which is very concerning, is extremely important.”
She confirmed the Trump administration is “looking at ways to tackle this issue head-on from the federal government.”
