AMERICA FIRST: House Advances Bill to Ban Foreign Adversaries from U.S. Farmland Ownership

The United States House of Representatives passed an amendment to the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, commonly known as the Farm Bill, that would bar foreign adversaries and state sponsors of terrorism from purchasing American agricultural land. The amendment, sponsored by Representative Greg Steube of Florida, targets nations including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, and represents the most significant federal legislative action yet to address what national security officials, agricultural policy experts, and Republican lawmakers have characterized as a growing and urgent threat to American food security and national sovereignty.

The Farm Bill itself, formally designated H.R. 7567 and reported out of the House Rules Committee by a record vote of 9 to 4 on April 28, 2026, is the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 and reauthorizes Department of Agriculture programs through fiscal year 2031. The foreign adversary farmland amendment is one of the most nationally significant provisions attached to the bill, addressing what the USDA’s own data describes as a problem already deeply embedded in the American agricultural landscape.

According to United States Department of Agriculture data, foreign entities currently hold approximately 45 to 46 million acres of American agricultural land, representing approximately 3.6 percent of all privately held agricultural land in the country and 2 percent of total United States acreage. That figure has been growing steadily and is widely acknowledged by USDA officials to be an undercount given the opacity of many foreign investment structures and the limitations of current reporting requirements that have allowed foreign buyers to obscure beneficial ownership.

Representative Steube, presenting the amendment to his colleagues, laid out the national security stakes plainly. Nefarious foreign acquisition of American land jeopardizes everything from national security to food security, he said. His remarks echoed a growing bipartisan consensus that the unfettered ability of governments hostile to the United States to purchase American farmland represents a category of national security risk that the existing regulatory framework has been inadequate to address.

The national security dimension of foreign farmland purchases is not abstract. In 2022, a United States subsidiary of the China-based Fufeng Group purchased more than 300 acres of farmland in Grand Forks, North Dakota. That purchase sat just 20 minutes away from Grand Forks Air Force Base, one of the United States military’s top drone research facilities. The purchase proceeded despite objections from congressional members and local officials who raised alarms about the proximity to the sensitive military installation. The Fufeng Group case became the defining illustration of the problem that existing law was failing to prevent, and it galvanized congressional support for stronger restrictions.

The Steube amendment addresses that gap by directly prohibiting the purchase of American farmland by foreign adversaries and state sponsors of terrorism. The designation of covered foreign adversaries focuses the restriction on the specific nations that the United States government has formally identified as hostile to American national security interests: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Land purchases by entities connected to any of those governments would be categorically prohibited under the amendment’s provisions.

The Farm Bill as a whole also significantly strengthens the role of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, in reviewing agricultural land transactions. CFIUS is the interagency committee responsible for reviewing proposed foreign investments in American companies and assets for potential national security risks. Under the Farm Bill provisions, CFIUS would gain special investigatory powers to examine farmland owned or purchased by foreign entities, with particular attention to buyers linked to adversarial nations. Previously, agricultural land transactions were not consistently within CFIUS’s review jurisdiction.

The bill also formally adds the Secretary of Agriculture to the CFIUS process, ensuring that agricultural considerations are elevated within the national security review framework for transactions involving American farmland. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and other Cabinet members had already announced in July 2025 a ban on the ownership of farmland by individuals with ties to foreign adversaries. The Farm Bill codifies and strengthens that administrative action with statutory authority, making the restrictions more durable and harder for a future administration to unwind through executive action alone.

The USDA requirement to notify CFIUS about significant transactions that warrant close examination for potential security risks creates a formal coordination mechanism between the agricultural and national security arms of the federal government that did not previously exist in a codified statutory form. This enhanced role for CFIUS means the committee will have the authority to initiate national security reviews for suspicious transactions proactively rather than waiting for transactions to come to its attention through other channels.

Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, a leading Senate supporter of the farmland protection effort, has argued that over the last decade there has been a surge of American farmland purchases from foreign adversaries and that the country must prioritize oversight of foreign investment in food supply chains, especially from Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.

He has called specifically for giving the agriculture community a permanent seat at the table on CFIUS, a goal the Farm Bill amendment partially achieves by bringing the Agriculture Secretary formally into the process.

Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington, a key supporter of the companion Protecting American Agriculture from Foreign Adversaries Act, has expressed particular concern about the practices of the Chinese Communist Party in acquiring American land. Newhouse has pointed to the CCP’s strategic patience in agricultural investment, arguing that what appear to be routine real estate transactions are in many cases elements of a longer-term strategy to establish leverage over American food production and supply chains.

The concern about Chinese acquisition of American farmland is not theoretical. China-linked entities have purchased farmland in multiple states, with concentrations in states that are home to significant agricultural production and, in some cases, proximity to military installations. The USDA’s own data on foreign-held agricultural acreage has been criticized by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as understating the true extent of foreign ownership because of gaps in reporting requirements that allow foreign buyers to structure purchases through domestic entities that obscure the ultimate foreign beneficial ownership.

The Farm Bill amendment addresses the reporting transparency gap as well. The USDA is required under the bill’s provisions to improve its tracking and reporting of foreign-held agricultural acreage, including enhanced scrutiny of transactions that may be structured to avoid existing disclosure requirements.

The combination of enhanced CFIUS jurisdiction, Agriculture Secretary involvement, USDA notification requirements, and expanded reporting obligations creates a significantly more comprehensive oversight framework than currently exists.

Representative Brandon Gill of Texas submitted a companion amendment to the Steube provision that would subject foreign buyers of American farmland to reciprocity requirements, specifically mandating that foreign entities purchasing agricultural land in the United States be subject to the same restrictions that their home countries impose on American investors seeking to purchase agricultural land abroad. The reciprocity principle is straightforward: if China does not allow Americans to buy Chinese farmland, Chinese entities should not be allowed to buy American farmland. The practical effect of applying that principle universally would be to severely restrict Chinese agricultural land purchases in the United States, given the restrictions China places on foreign agricultural land ownership within its borders.

The bipartisan nature of the farmland protection effort deserves acknowledgment. While the legislative action has been driven primarily by Republican members, concern about foreign adversary control of American agricultural resources has found genuine support across party lines. Food security as a national security issue cuts across the traditional partisan divide because the vulnerability it addresses is one that affects American farmers, consumers, and communities regardless of political affiliation.

The legislative action at the federal level has been accompanied by parallel action at the state level across the country. South Carolina lawmakers have been advancing legislation to prohibit five specific countries, China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Cuba, from owning farmland in the state, with particular attention to land near military installations. South Carolina has Chinese-owned agricultural land in Sumter County, which is home to Shaw Air Force Base. Representative Patrick Haddon, who chairs the South Carolina House Operations and Management Committee and is leading that state effort, has stated plainly that foreign adversaries are desiring to come into America and buy up farmland and that it is happening all over the country.

The national security community has been increasingly vocal about the strategic dimension of foreign agricultural land purchases in a way that goes beyond the simple concern about proximity to military bases. Control of significant portions of American agricultural land by hostile foreign governments creates leverage over American food production that could be exercised in times of geopolitical crisis.

A foreign government that controls tens of thousands of acres of American farmland, employs American workers on that land, and holds legal title to the agricultural infrastructure associated with it has a form of economic and strategic presence inside American borders that represents a qualitatively different kind of risk from other forms of foreign investment.

The amendment and the broader Farm Bill passed through the House Rules Committee on a largely party-line vote, with Democrats opposing key provisions of the legislation. Democratic objections to the overall Farm Bill have focused on other sections of the legislation, including cuts to agricultural conservation programs and SNAP, rather than the foreign adversary farmland provisions specifically. The foreign ownership restrictions themselves have not generated the same level of partisan opposition as other Farm Bill elements, reflecting the genuine bipartisan concern about this particular issue even where broader disagreements about the legislation exist.

The Farm Bill now proceeds through the standard legislative process. The Senate will need to act on its own version of the legislation, and the House and Senate will need to reconcile any differences in a conference process before the bill can go to President Trump’s desk for signature. The foreign adversary farmland provisions enjoy strong support in the Senate, where members from agricultural states with significant military installations have been among the most vocal advocates for stronger restrictions on foreign land purchases.

President Trump has made protection of American assets from Chinese acquisition a consistent theme of his administration’s economic and national security policy. His administration’s executive actions on foreign farmland ownership, including the July 2025 announcement by Agriculture Secretary Rollins, signal strong White House support for the legislative codification of those restrictions in the Farm Bill. A presidential signature on a Farm Bill containing strong foreign adversary farmland protections is widely expected if the legislation reaches his desk in a form consistent with the House’s priorities.

The 46 million acres of American agricultural land currently held by foreign entities is a number that should alarm every American who understands that food security is national security. The Fufeng Group’s North Dakota purchase near Grand Forks Air Force Base was not an isolated incident. It was a visible example of a pattern that has been unfolding across multiple states and multiple foreign governments, enabled by a regulatory framework that was designed for a different era and has struggled to keep pace with the strategic sophistication of adversarial foreign investment strategies.

The Steube amendment and the broader Farm Bill farmland provisions represent a meaningful legislative response to that pattern. They will not retroactively undo the foreign land purchases that have already occurred, and they will face legal and regulatory implementation challenges as the new CFIUS framework is built out.

But they establish the legal foundation for a significantly more robust federal oversight regime than currently exists, one in which the Secretary of Agriculture has a formal seat in the national security review process and CFIUS has the explicit authority and mandate to examine agricultural land transactions as a matter of national security.

The amendment has passed the House. The Farm Bill moves forward. The Senate will have its opportunity to strengthen, weaken, or maintain the foreign adversary farmland provisions as it develops its own version of the legislation.

And the 46 million acres of American farmland currently held by foreign entities, including land linked to adversaries who have made no secret of their strategic intentions toward the United States, remains a vulnerability that the American legislative process is now, finally, moving to address in a serious and sustained way.