The Department of Agriculture's steps to prevent foreign adversaries such as China from owning U.S. land, especially near military bases, should be applauded, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., told Newsmax on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins unveiled a multiagency effort called the National Farm Security Action Plan to protect America's farmland, food supply, and critical research from influence and control by our adversaries — including banning the purchase of farmland by Chinese nationals.
"In my state alone, 2.2 million acres have been bought up by the Chinese and other foreign countries," Tuberville, a member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, told "Rob Schmitt Tonight."
"That has to stop. Our farmers, if they can't make a living, they deserve to be able to sell their land. But we have to sell it the American way, sell it to other Americans. We have to do that, and we have to do it all across the country," he said.
The USDA said the National Farm Security Action Plan has a seven-point plan. Rollins announced Tuesday that the first is "securing and protecting American farmland ownership, actively engaging at every level of government to take swift legislative and executive action to ban the purchase of American farmland by Chinese nationals and other foreign adversaries."
The National Agricultural Law Center said 26 states have laws restricting U.S. foreign adversaries from buying or owning land. Tuberville said it's about time the federal government addressed the issue. Rollins reportedly said more than 265,000 acres in the U.S. are owned by Chinese nationals, much of which is near military bases.
"Typical federal government, we're always their last one to arrive at the party," Tuberville said. "And we've known this has been going on. Nobody wanted to do anything about it.
"We've been screaming about it on the Senate floor, on the House floor, from the Republican side. It's just amazing what happens up here in the clown show in Washington, D.C. … Brooke Rollins, our secretary of agriculture, she's on top of it."
Tuberville blamed policies of the Democrats and the Biden administration that put farmers in such a financial bind that they were sold their land to foreign adversaries.
"For the past four years, we've seen the Biden administration absolutely deconstruct our farmers across this country," Tuberville said. "We lost 150,000 farms, 20,000, 25,000 farmers just in the last few years.
"The Biden administration and the Democrats are scared of this climate hoax and all the things that go along with soil erosion, things like that. But they forget that our farmers care more about our environment than anybody else.
"So, at the end of the day, they tried to put them under so they would actually have to sell to foreign entities. That was their plan all along. They want us to buy our food from overseas. Our farmers are fighting back."
"Food security is national security" was a common theme of Tuesday's announcement, which included Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, trade adviser Peter Navarro, plus members of Congress and the governors of Arkansas, Nebraska, and Tennessee. It occurred about a month after two Chinese researchers were arrested on suspicion of trying to smuggle samples of a crop-killing fungus into the U.S.
"We have to be able to supply our own food, but the Democrats want us to buy our food overseas," Tuberville said. "They want to do away with our farmers here. We want to be self-sufficient. … We have to do the right thing here, protect our farmers, do everything we can to make sure our farming increases."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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