‘National Security Risk’: Biden Admin Failed to Track Foreign Ownership of U.S. Farmland
The second-largest foreign landowner is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member.
BREITBART
An internal investigation has found that Joe Biden’s administration is failing to track foreign ownership of U.S. farmland, after it was recently discovered that the second-largest foreign landowner is a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member.
The Department of Agriculture (USDA) has not consistently shared timely data on foreign investments in farmland as required under the law, the investigation by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found.
The accountability agency’s report, published Thursday, found that the USDA is not in compliance with the 1978 Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA), which requires information on foreign land investors to be logged in a database which is part of an annual report to the U.S. Congress.
“The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) does not share timely data on foreign investments in agricultural land collected under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978, as amended (AFIDA),” the GAO report states, adding that this failure has created “potential national security risks.”
The investigative agency said that with the USDA’s “flawed” information-tracking process, it is impossible for them to report “reliable information to Congress or the public about where and how much U.S. agricultural land is held by foreign persons.”
The GAO said it conducted the study after the USDA “estimated” that foreign investment in American agricultural land had grown to “approximately 40 million acres in 2021.”
***
That report was released soon after the shocking revelation was made that a Chinese billionaire somehow stayed under the government’s radar for nearly a decade as the second-largest foreign owner of U.S. farmland.
According to Land Report, “Tianqiao Chen has been staring us straight in the face for almost a decade.”
Billionaire Chen Tianqiao, founder and chairman of Shanda Group (Sanjit Das/Bloomberg via Getty)
In 2015, the CCP member acquired nearly 200,000 acres of Oregon land from Fidelity National Financial Ventures for $85 million — $430 per acre.
***
. . . . politicians have voiced their concerns.
***
This report confirms our worst fear: the USDA has no idea who owns what land and where, and they have no plan to rectify it.
Food security is national security, and we cannot allow foreign adversaries to influence our food supply while we stick our heads in the sand. https://t.co/cUXs2fsGi1
— Rep. Dan Newhouse (@RepNewhouse) January 19, 2024
[Rep. Newhouse] vowed to “introduce measures aimed at fixing USDA’s internal reporting and data management to identify to Congress, and the American people, exactly who is investing in the over 40 million acres of U.S. farm land reported to have ties to foreign actors.”
READ ENTIRE ORGINAL ARTICLE
Header featured image (edited) credit: Tim Mossholder via Pexels; inset Ju Peng/Xinhua via Getty
Emphasis added by (TLB)
••••
••••
Stay tuned to …
••••
The Liberty Beacon Project is now expanding at a near exponential rate, and for this we are grateful and excited! But we must also be practical. For 7 years we have not asked for any donations, and have built this project with our own funds as we grew. We are now experiencing ever increasing growing pains due to the large number of websites and projects we represent. So we have just installed donation buttons on our websites and ask that you consider this when you visit them. Nothing is too small. We thank you for all your support and your considerations … (TLB)
••••
Comment Policy: As a privately owned web site, we reserve the right to remove comments that contain spam, advertising, vulgarity, threats of violence, racism, or personal/abusive attacks on other users. This also applies to trolling, the use of more than one alias, or just intentional mischief. Enforcement of this policy is at the discretion of this websites administrators. Repeat offenders may be blocked or permanently banned without prior warning.
••••
Disclaimer: TLB websites contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of “fair use” in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, health, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than “fair use” you must request permission from the copyright owner.
••••
Disclaimer: The information and opinions shared are for informational purposes only including, but not limited to, text, graphics, images and other material are not intended as medical advice or instruction. Nothing mentioned is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Leave a Reply