Advisor: China Is Trying To Access the U.S. Via Farmland

A former U.S. national security advisor recently told the House select panel investigating the Chinese Communist Party that the CCP may be infiltrating Midwest U.S. farm interests.  And, it didn’t start with a Chinese spy balloon.  H.R. McMaster says the long lines of CCP infiltration of U.S. corporate and farm interests may have been launched earlier and deeper than many think.

“The commercial aspect of this is often tied to the United Front Work Department, an arm of the Ministry of State Security, which forms organizations that look innocuous that promote U.S.-China dialogue in the area of agriculture, in particular in the American heartland.”

McMaster told the House Select Committee on U.S. Competition with the CCP that these groups coopt and coerce U.S. entities, all in an effort advance the agenda of the People’s Republic of China.  And that could include spying.

“Entities associated with the PRC as well as the CCP have made and continue to make investments in U.S. agricultural land and assets" said central Washington's Dan Newhouse, chair of the Western Caucus.  "Some of the proposed purchases are in close proximity to national security assets.”

That’s prompted some lawmakers to enact better reporting of foreign U.S. farmland buys and propose including USDA on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., that reviews national security concerns.  Another bill would bar the farm credit system from lending to foreign investors in U.S. farmland.

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