(The Center Square) – With the southern border crisis largely eliminated, Republicans and the Trump administration are setting their sights on China as the next major threat to U.S. domestic security.
Long considered a foreign adversary, China has been making inroads in nearly all sectors of American society, including real estate, universities, agriculture, and even the legal system. Reports released just over the past month show the spread of China’s influence.
One report showed that Chinese nationals made up the top percentage – 15% – of foreign buyers of U.S. homes from April 2024 to March 2025. That amounts to $13.7 billion worth of existing homes in the U.S. getting sold to Chinese nationals, some still residing abroad, as The Center Square reported.
Higher education institutions like the University of Michigan have had multiple Chinese foreign exchange students arrested for activities including spying on U.S. military bases, smuggling dangerous biological pathogens, and illegally voting in the 2024 presidential election.
An even greater source of concern for Republicans is the amount of U.S. farmland that Chinese entities – some of whom are connected to the Chinese Community Party – now own. According to a federal report released earlier this month, Chinese investors own at least 277,335 acres of agricultural land across 30 states, as The Center Square reported.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has pledged the Trump administration will “restore farm security and expose the extent to which our adversaries have targeted American agriculture.” She also recently launched a National Security Farm Action Plan to protect American agriculture.
Two Republican lawmakers plan to help with that effort. U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., introduced the Protecting Our Farms and Homes from China Act in their respective chambers this week.
The legislation would ban Chinese companies and individuals affiliated with the CCP from buying agricultural land in the U.S. and require such parties who already own U.S. agricultural land to divest of it within one year.
Those parties would also have to divest of any U.S. residential real estate currently owned, and any residential real estate in the U.S. would be off-limits to CCP-affiliated buyers for the next two years. The president could renew that prohibition biennially.
“China’s goal is simple: control our food production, control our land, and weaken America from within,” Miller stated Friday on X. “We are not going to let that happen.”
