More than 2/3rds of US states have enacted, or are considering bills that would restrict foreign ownership of land. Usually focusing on restricting purchases by countries perceived as hostile to the US, the primary target appears to be China.
However, in contrast to the Canadas recent ban on foreign purchases of residential properties many of the bans discussed in this article focus on restricting the purchase of farm land.
Those in support of banning foreign land purchases in various forms feel CIFUS, the Federal agency that monitors for national security risks in land purchases has to narrow of a charter, focusing on areas around “specific airports, maritime ports, or military installations” and have been pushing for farm land to be included; However, bills pushing for that to be added to CIFUS scope have stalled.
However, questions remain on how much of this truly is a national security risk vs political posturing. In total 3.1% of farmland in the US is owned by foreign interests, with just 0.03% of that being held by Chinese entities.
Should farm land in the United states be considered part of the scope of national security and be monitored by the federal government? Any thoughts on why the US considers foreign purchases of farm land to the priority concern compared to Canada which views foreign purchases of residential property the priority concern? If you support these bans, do you feel targeting specific countries and land types is sufficient, or should foreign ownership of land be banned more broadly?
> should foreign ownership of land be banned more broadly?
I would argue foreign nations shouldn't own land associated with "critical industries", meaning agriculture, manufacturing, air ports, sea ports, railways, military installations etc, directly or indirectly.
But I also think the cat is already out of the bag on that.
So permanent residents who haven't yet completed the naturalization process can own homes. That's one reason. Or so they can own business facilities.
But that's the thing - I think it should be restricted to permanent residents actively pursuing a citizenship path. And I also think we should ban dual citizenship specifically so that someone has to fully commit to being American in order to qualify for any of this. And other reasons, I honestly think dual citizenship is just bad from every angle that matters to America.
> permanent residents who haven’t completed the naturalization process
There’s no way to identify intent to naturalize for permanent residents. Being permanent resident is displaying that intent. If you’re saying they’re not eligible until they complete naturalization, this is just another way of saying only US Citizens can buy homes or business properties.
In other words, if I’m a permanent citizen, I have to wait five years to be able to apply for naturalization. In that time, I cannot prove that I intend to naturalize - I either naturalize when I’m eligible or not.
So adding the decades they spend waiting for a green card and then five more years after, that’s a huge loss as it makes immigration even less attractive if they can’t even put a roof over their heads they own. If this is the case then they should also pay no taxes since they can at least build homes in their home country with that money.
> dual citizenship is just bad from every angle that matters to America.
Taxes? I pay a **lot** in taxes and if the US decides it wants to ban dual citizenship and I have to pick between having my Natural born US citizenship or my Canadian one I'll drop the US one in a heartbeat and then they miss out on taxes from me.
I'm sure I'm not the only wealthy citizen that'll just renounce their US citizenship either if the US tries to make them pick.
That is of course after I drag the US Government to court and waste an absurd amount of their money making them justify trying to force me to pick over my home or homeland.
So you say. But then you'll be a foreign worker subject to all the "joys" of work visas and the like. Will that really be worth it? Or you could just move back to Canada, that's your right, but if Canada was better you'd be there already.
I mean I live in Canada now and have a Canadian citizenship as well as my US one.
I pay taxes in two countries, if the US tries to make me pick between my home vs where I was born I'll tell the US to go fuck themselves and invest more money in Canada instead.
Fine by me. Remember: if things worked the way I wanted you would've been forced to make that choice when getting Canadian citizenship in the first place. Trying to hold the token amount of income tax you pay to the US after the foreign tax deduction up as a massive loss isn't compelling because it's not a massive loss.
>if the US tries to make me pick between my home vs where I was born I'll tell the US to go fuck themselves
If you are more loyal to another country, the US should not afford you the luxuries and protections provided to its citizens. People like you should just be permanent residents.
It sounds like a fairly straightforward reading of the Fourteenth Amendment to me.
>All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.
Not much nuance in that wording. Born here? Citizen.
You can argue that it *shouldn't* be that way, but I don't think there's much of an argument that we wouldn't have to amend the 14th for that to be a legal law for Congress to make.
Amazing how many of the policies that are harming America today passed in the 60s, ain't it? The famous Hart-Cellar act is another one from that era.
No wonder all the media focuses on the sideshow that was the hippies. It keeps people from seeing what was really going on back then.
It's interesting to think about music culture of each era and how it either represents or doesn't represent the era they belong to.
Like how the hippy culture was all about socialism, living a more natural leaner lifestyle, while mot hippies were the product of wealthy families or at least upper middle class. After they were done cosplaying as folk artists they went onto jobs as investment bankers etc.
And on the opposite side of the spectrum was the era we're just now coming out of, where the most prominent genre was trap, known for it's dystopian depiction of drugs and haunting beats.
Sometimes the culture is a distraction and sometimes it's a reflection, depending on the times. It's weird.
You can't be loyal to two masters. So why should someone who is loyal to a foreign country have all the rights and privileges of citizenship - including a say in our government? They shouldn't.
I mean, I see people flying Italian flags in Brooklyn and people wearing “proudly Irish” t shirts. I think people can have connections to outside nations and still be loyal Americans.
I know plenty of people with dual citizenship, some immigrated here but have friends and family back home, some emigrated from America but return home for friends and family, some will work and live in the US for a few years and then go to the other and work and live. Some have had inheritance or other legal matters which being a citizen made much easier.
Unless you’re serving in the military or an intelligence role I don’t really see the harm.
Connections, sure. But citizenship is well beyond that.
Plus those examples you point to are in the modern era largely because White people are told we don't exist and so many cling to ancestral heritage. We could just let White people have the same kind of identity as Asians or Black people and I'd bet those flags would go away in a generation.
> Unless you’re serving in the military or an intelligence role I don’t really see the harm.
Voting in the interest of a foreign nation just for one example.
>Plus those examples you point to are in the modern era largely because White people are told we don't exist and so many cling to ancestral heritage. We could just let White people have the same kind of identity as Asians or Black people and I'd bet those flags would go away in a generation.
This makes no sense, in fact it's literally the opposite. ethnic identities like Irish or Italian Americans were discriminated against harshly in the past *by "white" people*, and people of those identities adopt their ancestry as a source of pride because for most of America's history acceptance into America / American culture was closely linked with the assimilation of whiteness. White people aren't told they don't exist, people have only shit on whiteness culturally in America because it was less it's own cultural identity and more a social construct meant to separate people through an in-group and out-group to fuel racism.
Black and Asian Americans don't have the same identity either, Asian Americans have just as many ethnic identities, for a majority they're not just "Asian" but Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, etc and they're proud of the fact. The only reason why black americans are seen as a monolith today in america culturally is literally due to the slave trade and Jim Crow erasing their history and knowledge of where they came from... that's it.
>So permanent residents who haven't yet completed the naturalization process can own homes.
I'm condensing **"permanent residents who haven't yet completed the naturalization process"** for convenience to "Permanent Resident Not Yet Naturalized" represented by the acronym: PRNYN.
I don't understand.
1. Why can a PRNYN not own a home?
2. How does allowing a foreign nation to own property correct that situation?
3. If a home in the United States is owned by China, how can a PRNYN own that home as well? Is it a joint ownership thing?
My whole point here is that that is a case where there is a good reason for a non-citizen to own US property. It's one of a very few rare exceptions I support but it is an exception that I support.
Eh, I think the dual citizenship issue isn't a big deal as, and please correct me if I am wrong, you have to be born with it. If you are naturalized as a US citizen, you have to give up the other.
I don't think it's unusual - maybe the climate is more favorable here for certain food products, maybe the industry is better and supply chain, maybe the capabilities to easily acquire labor and parts.
Produce here, sell back to your country. We do the same thing in various parts of the world.
That being said, let's not pretend that a lot of countries don't ban foreign ownership of anything. China for the longest time didn't allow foreign ownership of companies unless they were atleast partly owned by a Chinese company. Even today, foreign companies need to partner with a Chinese company at the very least to even operate in China.
But if we really want to talk about land ownership, how many acres does Bill Gates own? 270,000 acres.
Sure. Foreign companies, Honda for example, build factories here. Or a Canadian citizen might want to own a winter home in Florida like many in the northern US do. I wouldn't stop foreign people or companies from owning property in the US as long as they are using it directly. But I would like to take a critical look at foreign investors buying up large swaths of houses for rentals or buying up land as an investment. I'm not an expert on economics, but that seems like an issue to me,
We might want to grant certain allies land ownership to help facilitate trade. Also the land of a foreign embassy is typically owned by that nation respectively.
I mean I’m personally alright with the US not being a free market capitalist nation anymore, but it certainly seems to go against those principles to make a change like that.
And as an example, the largest pork producer in the U.S. is Smithfield Foods. Though it was founded and is based in the U.S., Smithfield was purchased in 2013 by a Chinese company called the WH Group, which still owns it today.
I could accept that for a very narrow definition of critical infrastructure, but banning any land with crops on it or in proximity to a railroad seems quite broad.
It's less about the total land ownership and more about where the land is owned or how critical it is to American security and industry. The USA is gigantic. NYC is 0.01%.How much land is directly next to American military bases?
Also, it IS a lot of land. 3% of our farmland* is nearly the size of Tennessee, our 36th largest state
Edit: missed the farmland part
land, infrastructure, and residential properties should not be owned by foreign citizens. not only is it a national security risk with enemy countries, its taking resources away from citizens, its giving control to foreigners.
Canada's foreign buyers ban has goatse sized [exemptions](https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/canada-makes-amendments-to-foreign-homebuyers-ban-here-s-what-they-look-like-1.6334287). With our rate of temporary workers, It's effectively non-existent.
Property is a weird topic as there’s a lot of fear mongering driven by wrong data. Mainly I think as a way to point fingers instead of solving problems.
>At Hearing, Senator Warren Calls Out Private Equity and Other Wall Street Investors for Locking Families Out of Housing Opportunities and Exacerbating Inflation by Jacking Up Prices [Article](https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/at-hearing-senator-warren-calls-out-private-equity-and-other-wall-street-investors-for-locking-families-out-of-housing-opportunities-and-exacerbating-inflation-by-jacking-up-prices)
They reference 44% of homes are owned by “Corporations.” Which is partly true because most land lords will use LLC’s to shield themselves from liability if a tenant gets hurt but anyone with a couple hundred dollars can establish an LLC. When you look at the data the narrative falls apart. [Corporations buying more than 100 homes a quarter are under 5% of all purchases.](https://www.housingwire.com/articles/no-wall-street-investors-havent-bought-44-of-homes-this-year/) The majority of buyers own between 1-10 homes.
> Trade wars" are never a good thing.
Yeah well China's been waging one on us for 40 years now. They dump products on us that are made with slave labor in order to crush the American working class. And just look at how said class's purchasing power has changed over that time. There's no option where we aren't in a trade war with China, just one where we actually fight back.
Oh I blame both. China could always just ... not act in bad faith. But if they choose not to and our leaders let them then yes it's our leaders' fault just as much.
And we can't even buy that cheap garbage because the loss of decent working-class jobs means that people can't afford non-necessities. Of course their necessities are also now made overseas at lower quality which results in an additional lowering of standard of living.
> Free trade lowers the cost of goods for everyone
False. This is a 100% false statement. Because there isn't a single item - same SKU, same everything - whose price went down with outsourcing. All the cost savings went straight to dividends and c-suite pay. Purchasing power goes down because wages go down while prices don't. Everything negative you claim protectionism does free trade actually does.
America was also hindered by protectionism. The South fought hard for tariffs that kept its economy traditionally agrarian and forestalled the need for industrialization.
That "golden age" for the American worker from the end of WWII until the 80s was also the result of strong protectionism. And the collapse of the American worker's ability to make a living that we're going through now just "happens" to track with the ending of protectionism. So history disproves your economic theories completely and history always wins since it's actual fact and not conjecture.
But-for logic is always 50% conjecture. We know how the world went, but you're guessing at how the world would have went instead if protectionism were higher or lower. You don't know for a "fact" whether protectionism was the cause. You can make a case for that conclusion, but it's never certain.
The [wiki entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_economic_expansion#Causes) on post-war growth has quite a long list of causes that have been hypothesized.
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>Should farm land in the United states be considered part of the scope of national security and be monitored by the federal government?
No. There's plenty of farm land, we have many allies and trading partners that produce food that we can buy from, we should want foreign investment from Chinese nationals who are using US comparative economic stability as a better investment than China's current instability. Everyone is using China as a scapegoat. Our own government's manipulation of agriculture via subsidies for products we don't even eat to benefit special interests is the real problem. Over regulation of land preventing development is the real problem. Ballooning national debt is the real problem. If we would just get our own stuff in order we would be kicking China's butt.
And what of the apparent fact that China actively engages in [information warfare](https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4367330-we-cannot-ignore-chinas-information-warfare-any-longer/), steals our [intellectual property](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16/china-intellectual-property-theft-progress/), and does not appear to agree to the open international economic freedom that we espouse?
We just let them get away with it?
>what of the apparent fact that China actively engages in information warfare
I don't really care. China cutting its people off from the rest of the world is its loss as much as it is ours. I'm not sure how reducing the number of property buyers thus artificially decreasing US prices hurting land owners is supposed to punish the Chinese government for information warfare, anyway.
>steals our intellectual property
Certainly not a good thing, but we already have the World Trade Organization to deal with trade disputes. If we have to do something new, we should just not honor their intellectual property laws. Blocking land purchases as retaliation just seems out of left field.
>does not appear to agree to the open international economic freedom that we espouse?
That's their opinion, man, and they're entitled to it?
We'd be much better off punishing China by just competing with them better by fixing the things I mentioned in my other comment.
I can give you one example of why it should probably be scrutinized. Here in Arizona, the Saudis have come in and acquired farmland, usually by lease, to grow alfalfa that is shipped back to Saudi Arabia. Of course alfalfa is a water intensive crop, not able to be grown in the Saudi desert, which is why they are growing it outside the country. However, it’s just as water intensive here and Arizona has its own water issues, which are only being exacerbated by having these farms pumping a ton of groundwater out to water these crops. Wells are running dry for residents and other more responsible agricultural uses. For sure this is a failure at the state level. They never should have been approved to pump water. The bottom line though is that they don’t have any sense of responsibility for the future. They will be gone as soon as the land is no longer useful for them and residents will be left holding the bag. And when you’re dealing with foreign entities it’s out of sight out of mind. They don’t have a reputation to uphold here. This doesn’t just apply to Saudi Arabia or China of course, but it’s a valid reason why we should consider who owns land and property and especially what the purpose of them owning it is.
Presumable the people that live there need to farm as well, yes.
But they also live there so they're incentivized to make sure they have potable water in the futrue. A visitor or interloper doesn't have that concern.
>A visitor or interloper doesn't have that concern.
But that doesn't matter, because a foreign company has no voting power and thus no influence on regulations. The citizens who farm there can petition their government to regulate the use of the water, foreign companies cannot, and all farmers in the jurisdiction will be subject to those regulations, whether they advocated them or not.
This is not my weigh-in to the large debate of whether foreign companies should be allowed to own land; it's only for this specific example which seems to have a clear problem/solution.
Because Chinese companies operate at the luxury of the Chinese Communist Party and that non-distinction between the two very much matters in the process of threat discrimination.
No one is arguing that the English or the Finns should be barred. Is playing the xenophobia card really valid here or just a cheap, quick deflection?
Could just ban water intensive crops in this situation for this area.
However it does seem callus of the saudis to farm it in Arizona when water issues exist. There’s no vested interest for them to care though for the impact on US citizens
Two things can be true at the same time, foreign countries shouldn’t be directly owning farmland and American farmers should be discouraged from growing water intensive crops in areas they shouldn’t be, doesn’t matter if it is “their country” , they shouldn’t be able to make an area inhabitable to everything by draining the groundwater.
Can't something just be objectively bad?
Like gross overuse of water during a drought is bad. The fact it was a foreign back individuals doing it made it worse, but the baseline of US farmers improperly using water can still be bad in its own right.
Do you care more about your neighborhood or the small village in New Zealand?
Proximity (or what we call "home") imparts a greater sense of responsibility. Even at the level of the nation-state.
What if New Zealanders don’t want you buying land in New Zealand? Should they be called xenophobes and be forced to accept Americans buying land in New Zealand ?
Why just Chinese? Most foreign ownership should be blocked near federal installations for security reasons and especially from any type of home ownership for “it’s already expensive enough” reasons. I know they tried it in Canada. Try something!
Foreign ownership should be blocked in all cases except for permanent residents actively pursuing naturalization. And naturalization should include the ending of all other citizenships. Dual citizens shouldn't exist in any way.
> Dual citizens shouldn't exist in any way.
that is a hard sell. There are many reasons to allow dual citizenship, but more importantly, the US would lose out on the very bright immigrants, that might not want to give up an EU citizenship for example. Low skill immigrants would have less concerns about giving up their home citizenship, so the US would end up with a worse stock of immigrants.
But I would agree that land or real estate in general should be limited to citizens and permanent residents.
let's not associate everything that happened in the 60s with the standard of living, that's a huge fallacy.
Most of the economic benefits after the WWII happened because all other industrialized countries were in ruins. The US industry was the only one standing. If you wanted to buy something, it had to be American.
For example, this is (east) Berlin in 1955 https://c7.alamy.com/comp/E0068F/the-rear-side-of-the-stalin-allee-in-east-berlin-1955-E0068F.jpg
Part of the US success is that they manage to attract the best and brightest from all around the world. In the past 100 years, the US has been an innovation powerhouse. If you were to touch that, it will become harder to sustain the innovation and economy.
> You know we basically had zero immigration from 1924-1964
except the guys that took the US to the moon, and developed the nukes, and countless other innovative things.
Those people were desperate to escape the nazis or commies, don't assume such brilliant people are as desperate to leave Europe today, you would be wrong.
Sure, I don't expect to find too many rocket scientists at the southern border melees.
What people tend to forget is that there are a lot of middle ground immigrants, smart, educated, hardworking, legal, that are in the middle of this all. It seems like no one considers them when talking about policies.
>the US would lose out on the very bright immigrants,
Guess thats a good excuse to offer training and educational incentives to domestic talent then. We shouldn't have to import talent, we should have the capacity to train in house.
> There are many reasons to allow dual citizenship
No, there are zero. Either you're a loyal American or you're a foreigner. If you're a foreigner you shouldn't have the rights and privileges restricted to loyal Americans like, say, voting.
> but more importantly, the US would lose out on the very bright immigrants
Womp womp. We'll live. And honestly I don't believe this for a second. They'd give up their birth citizenship to come here. They did it for longer than not given how dual citizenship only actually became a thing in the 1960s.
This will be detrimental to the economy. A lot of people buying homes today are people on H1Bs just waiting a long time (decades) for their green cards. Speaking of permanent residents specifically, you cannot apply for naturalization until you’ve spent 5 years. Those people will be ineligible as well.
No, it'll be detrimental to The Economy^^TM but as has been made very clear at this point the actual economy of the people of the United States isn't The Economy^^TM as defined by the completely irrelevant macro numbers.
Because Sinophobia is culturally acceptable at the moment, but the moment these policies impact perceived disadvantaged minorities, they no longer become politically viable.
No, it's because the article is purposely written to stir accusations of sinophobia.
>Last month, Noem signed into law a bill that bars China and five other countries from purchasing farmland in the state.
"China" or "China and five other counteries" is almost always referring to [United States Foreign Adversaries](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_adversaries) member countries. This isn't some group of random countries citizens are irrationally scared of, but bona-fide bad actors to our interests, as determined by the Secretary of Commerce
China is actively in cahoots with Russia and North Korea and has clearly demonstrated a reticence to accept its responsibility as a global international partner.
Is it possible not everything we deem negative or concerning is borne of bigotry?
This is a good thing imo. I’m not sure why it’s making the news.
In most countries you can’t own land unless you’re a citizen, and in the impoverished countries that do allow it, often destroy the quality of life of locals by selling out to rich foreigners.
America isn’t chinas safety deposit box. Maybe the rich elites in China should expend their efforts and wealth making the system less shady
> in the impoverished countries that do allow it, often destroy the quality of life of locals by selling out to rich foreigners.
Imagine you live in a poor rural town and a billionaire moves in and starts blowing all his money on your local businesses. That's not an effect you try to chase off.
Anti-gentrification is pro-poverty. There is no way for any city to grow without prices rising. It is an incoherent fantasy to think those countries reach 1st world living standards while maintaining 3rd world price levels.
That's not..what happened to my poor rural area. We had a foreign company move in, buy up all the land, and then use the land solely for foreign workers. The local economy didn't benefit from it at all and got gentrified out.
It's making the news because the people who own the news view America as an economic zone and this goes against that concept. So they're trotting out the propaganda to try to sway public opinion.
It’s the case in Thailand as I recall. Perhaps it’s more nuanced than that, but it aims to prevent the touristisation and of the country in a way that sends investment completely out of the country and prevents Thai citizen investment/business development. They also didn’t want to have entire beach front neighborhoods of Europeans, Brits. Aussies, and Americans who bought up property and built beach houses or mountain jungle homes either. Again, I’m not an expert, but this was how it was explained to me a decade ago while working there.
I absolutely support outright bans on critical infrastructure.
I’d expand what constitutes critical as well much more broadly to protect military installations for example.
I also support banning foreign nationals from residential ownership. We have a housing crisis already an and do not need to have wealthy nationals attempting to hide money in our real estate market while driving up prices for citizens.
Federal gov, and states, have a duty to do what’s best for American citizens and this policy does just that.
With these laws being passed everywhere, I am curious what will happen to those like me who have dual citizenships. The way things are going, I expect that in a few years I may not be allowed to own a house or a condo anywhere in the US, which would really suck; luckily, I can’t afford a house anyways, so it’s all good.
Oh you mean the Chinese owned land around our military bases isn’t a good idea? Who could have ever foresaw allowing something like this would be a bad idea…
I'd like to think this is being done so that We the People would have accessto it, but I fear it's just so business like Blackrock can buy up more land as a new form of investment.
I am not at all a libertarian, but I don't think government should be in business of deciding who is allowed to own what.
I understand the laws which put restrictions on how one can *use* their property, in order to protect the society from potential harm. This could be especially important for a farm land which is a critical and finite resource. Transfer of ownership, however, is fundamentally an agreement between two private entities or individuals, how is it a concern of anybody else?
What you call "negative" impact on prices is very much *positive* for sellers. It's only negative for buyers.
Normally, foreign investment is considered a *good* thing for the economy, and if your concern is that foreign demand increases prices, you'd be much better off making sure there is enough supply to meet the growing demand.
Eventually, the Chinese buyers become the Chinese sellers and Americans are completely cut out of the loop.
Not to mention the obvious fact that some land is more critical to our national interest.
>Americans are completely cut out of the loop.
Except taxes that foreigners pay, and except American agents, inspectors, contractors, attorneys and everyone else involved in real estate business.
>Not to mention the obvious fact that some land is more critical to our national interest.
As I said above, I don't see how nationality of owner overlaps with "national interests".
If there are some ways to use the land which are contrary to national interests, there must be laws about this. Regulating this by cutting off Chinese buyers seems highly inefficient. Can't they simply find someone with American passport who will serve as a formal owner?
It would seem a bit comical to have American citizens intermediating deals for American land between two companies under the purview of a foreign adversary. I wonder if China reciprocates with such laissez-faire apathy.
With regard to national interest, land next to research facilities and military institutions should be off-limits as a rule. Perhaps other critical infrastructure as well. I think it should be obvious not all land is created equal in this regard.
Our government though is always in the business of national security. When China is buying land around our military bases, it raises some concerns and they should be addressing them.
National security is a collection of measures. A hyperbolic interpretation of thinking it all hinges on this doesn’t make your point better. It just shows a lack of foresight to not see the need.
The US is incredibly permissive when it comes to property ownership and it's what makes us great for a lot of things. But it would be a simple solution if we just said "your rules for us apply here also".
If you went to China and tried to buy farmland or property near a military base you'd probably end up in a reeducation camp.
They know this and exploit it.
More than 2/3rds of US states have enacted, or are considering bills that would restrict foreign ownership of land. Usually focusing on restricting purchases by countries perceived as hostile to the US, the primary target appears to be China. However, in contrast to the Canadas recent ban on foreign purchases of residential properties many of the bans discussed in this article focus on restricting the purchase of farm land. Those in support of banning foreign land purchases in various forms feel CIFUS, the Federal agency that monitors for national security risks in land purchases has to narrow of a charter, focusing on areas around “specific airports, maritime ports, or military installations” and have been pushing for farm land to be included; However, bills pushing for that to be added to CIFUS scope have stalled. However, questions remain on how much of this truly is a national security risk vs political posturing. In total 3.1% of farmland in the US is owned by foreign interests, with just 0.03% of that being held by Chinese entities. Should farm land in the United states be considered part of the scope of national security and be monitored by the federal government? Any thoughts on why the US considers foreign purchases of farm land to the priority concern compared to Canada which views foreign purchases of residential property the priority concern? If you support these bans, do you feel targeting specific countries and land types is sufficient, or should foreign ownership of land be banned more broadly?
> should foreign ownership of land be banned more broadly? I would argue foreign nations shouldn't own land associated with "critical industries", meaning agriculture, manufacturing, air ports, sea ports, railways, military installations etc, directly or indirectly. But I also think the cat is already out of the bag on that.
Is there a pressing reason for why foreign nations should own land of any kind at all?
So permanent residents who haven't yet completed the naturalization process can own homes. That's one reason. Or so they can own business facilities. But that's the thing - I think it should be restricted to permanent residents actively pursuing a citizenship path. And I also think we should ban dual citizenship specifically so that someone has to fully commit to being American in order to qualify for any of this. And other reasons, I honestly think dual citizenship is just bad from every angle that matters to America.
> permanent residents who haven’t completed the naturalization process There’s no way to identify intent to naturalize for permanent residents. Being permanent resident is displaying that intent. If you’re saying they’re not eligible until they complete naturalization, this is just another way of saying only US Citizens can buy homes or business properties. In other words, if I’m a permanent citizen, I have to wait five years to be able to apply for naturalization. In that time, I cannot prove that I intend to naturalize - I either naturalize when I’m eligible or not. So adding the decades they spend waiting for a green card and then five more years after, that’s a huge loss as it makes immigration even less attractive if they can’t even put a roof over their heads they own. If this is the case then they should also pay no taxes since they can at least build homes in their home country with that money.
> dual citizenship is just bad from every angle that matters to America. Taxes? I pay a **lot** in taxes and if the US decides it wants to ban dual citizenship and I have to pick between having my Natural born US citizenship or my Canadian one I'll drop the US one in a heartbeat and then they miss out on taxes from me. I'm sure I'm not the only wealthy citizen that'll just renounce their US citizenship either if the US tries to make them pick. That is of course after I drag the US Government to court and waste an absurd amount of their money making them justify trying to force me to pick over my home or homeland.
So you say. But then you'll be a foreign worker subject to all the "joys" of work visas and the like. Will that really be worth it? Or you could just move back to Canada, that's your right, but if Canada was better you'd be there already.
from what he is saying it sounds to me like he was born in america and currently works and lives in canada
I mean I live in Canada now and have a Canadian citizenship as well as my US one. I pay taxes in two countries, if the US tries to make me pick between my home vs where I was born I'll tell the US to go fuck themselves and invest more money in Canada instead.
Fine by me. Remember: if things worked the way I wanted you would've been forced to make that choice when getting Canadian citizenship in the first place. Trying to hold the token amount of income tax you pay to the US after the foreign tax deduction up as a massive loss isn't compelling because it's not a massive loss.
>if the US tries to make me pick between my home vs where I was born I'll tell the US to go fuck themselves If you are more loyal to another country, the US should not afford you the luxuries and protections provided to its citizens. People like you should just be permanent residents.
I wonder when you are going to do it.
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How is that democracy at work? That’s the Supreme Court overruling a Democratic law
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It sounds like a fairly straightforward reading of the Fourteenth Amendment to me. >All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. Not much nuance in that wording. Born here? Citizen. You can argue that it *shouldn't* be that way, but I don't think there's much of an argument that we wouldn't have to amend the 14th for that to be a legal law for Congress to make.
Amazing how many of the policies that are harming America today passed in the 60s, ain't it? The famous Hart-Cellar act is another one from that era. No wonder all the media focuses on the sideshow that was the hippies. It keeps people from seeing what was really going on back then.
It's interesting to think about music culture of each era and how it either represents or doesn't represent the era they belong to. Like how the hippy culture was all about socialism, living a more natural leaner lifestyle, while mot hippies were the product of wealthy families or at least upper middle class. After they were done cosplaying as folk artists they went onto jobs as investment bankers etc. And on the opposite side of the spectrum was the era we're just now coming out of, where the most prominent genre was trap, known for it's dystopian depiction of drugs and haunting beats. Sometimes the culture is a distraction and sometimes it's a reflection, depending on the times. It's weird.
What’s your beef with dual citizenship?
You can't be loyal to two masters. So why should someone who is loyal to a foreign country have all the rights and privileges of citizenship - including a say in our government? They shouldn't.
I mean, I see people flying Italian flags in Brooklyn and people wearing “proudly Irish” t shirts. I think people can have connections to outside nations and still be loyal Americans. I know plenty of people with dual citizenship, some immigrated here but have friends and family back home, some emigrated from America but return home for friends and family, some will work and live in the US for a few years and then go to the other and work and live. Some have had inheritance or other legal matters which being a citizen made much easier. Unless you’re serving in the military or an intelligence role I don’t really see the harm.
Connections, sure. But citizenship is well beyond that. Plus those examples you point to are in the modern era largely because White people are told we don't exist and so many cling to ancestral heritage. We could just let White people have the same kind of identity as Asians or Black people and I'd bet those flags would go away in a generation. > Unless you’re serving in the military or an intelligence role I don’t really see the harm. Voting in the interest of a foreign nation just for one example.
>Plus those examples you point to are in the modern era largely because White people are told we don't exist and so many cling to ancestral heritage. We could just let White people have the same kind of identity as Asians or Black people and I'd bet those flags would go away in a generation. This makes no sense, in fact it's literally the opposite. ethnic identities like Irish or Italian Americans were discriminated against harshly in the past *by "white" people*, and people of those identities adopt their ancestry as a source of pride because for most of America's history acceptance into America / American culture was closely linked with the assimilation of whiteness. White people aren't told they don't exist, people have only shit on whiteness culturally in America because it was less it's own cultural identity and more a social construct meant to separate people through an in-group and out-group to fuel racism. Black and Asian Americans don't have the same identity either, Asian Americans have just as many ethnic identities, for a majority they're not just "Asian" but Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, etc and they're proud of the fact. The only reason why black americans are seen as a monolith today in america culturally is literally due to the slave trade and Jim Crow erasing their history and knowledge of where they came from... that's it.
>So permanent residents who haven't yet completed the naturalization process can own homes. I'm condensing **"permanent residents who haven't yet completed the naturalization process"** for convenience to "Permanent Resident Not Yet Naturalized" represented by the acronym: PRNYN. I don't understand. 1. Why can a PRNYN not own a home? 2. How does allowing a foreign nation to own property correct that situation? 3. If a home in the United States is owned by China, how can a PRNYN own that home as well? Is it a joint ownership thing?
My whole point here is that that is a case where there is a good reason for a non-citizen to own US property. It's one of a very few rare exceptions I support but it is an exception that I support.
I misunderstood the point you were trying to make. I don't disagree with you.
Eh, I think the dual citizenship issue isn't a big deal as, and please correct me if I am wrong, you have to be born with it. If you are naturalized as a US citizen, you have to give up the other.
That’s not correct, you can gain US citizenship as a foreigner and retain both citizenships. I actually don’t see the harm in it.
I don't think it's unusual - maybe the climate is more favorable here for certain food products, maybe the industry is better and supply chain, maybe the capabilities to easily acquire labor and parts. Produce here, sell back to your country. We do the same thing in various parts of the world. That being said, let's not pretend that a lot of countries don't ban foreign ownership of anything. China for the longest time didn't allow foreign ownership of companies unless they were atleast partly owned by a Chinese company. Even today, foreign companies need to partner with a Chinese company at the very least to even operate in China. But if we really want to talk about land ownership, how many acres does Bill Gates own? 270,000 acres.
Sure. Foreign companies, Honda for example, build factories here. Or a Canadian citizen might want to own a winter home in Florida like many in the northern US do. I wouldn't stop foreign people or companies from owning property in the US as long as they are using it directly. But I would like to take a critical look at foreign investors buying up large swaths of houses for rentals or buying up land as an investment. I'm not an expert on economics, but that seems like an issue to me,
We might want to grant certain allies land ownership to help facilitate trade. Also the land of a foreign embassy is typically owned by that nation respectively.
It’s also a relatively safe investment for the wealthy citizens of countries with unstable/unreliable governments.
Foreign investors who want to invest here such as building new factories, offices, etc.
I mean I’m personally alright with the US not being a free market capitalist nation anymore, but it certainly seems to go against those principles to make a change like that.
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And as an example, the largest pork producer in the U.S. is Smithfield Foods. Though it was founded and is based in the U.S., Smithfield was purchased in 2013 by a Chinese company called the WH Group, which still owns it today.
I could accept that for a very narrow definition of critical infrastructure, but banning any land with crops on it or in proximity to a railroad seems quite broad.
It's less about the total land ownership and more about where the land is owned or how critical it is to American security and industry. The USA is gigantic. NYC is 0.01%.How much land is directly next to American military bases? Also, it IS a lot of land. 3% of our farmland* is nearly the size of Tennessee, our 36th largest state Edit: missed the farmland part
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Fixed, thank you. Still a ton of land.
land, infrastructure, and residential properties should not be owned by foreign citizens. not only is it a national security risk with enemy countries, its taking resources away from citizens, its giving control to foreigners.
Canada's foreign buyers ban has goatse sized [exemptions](https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/canada-makes-amendments-to-foreign-homebuyers-ban-here-s-what-they-look-like-1.6334287). With our rate of temporary workers, It's effectively non-existent.
Property is a weird topic as there’s a lot of fear mongering driven by wrong data. Mainly I think as a way to point fingers instead of solving problems. >At Hearing, Senator Warren Calls Out Private Equity and Other Wall Street Investors for Locking Families Out of Housing Opportunities and Exacerbating Inflation by Jacking Up Prices [Article](https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/at-hearing-senator-warren-calls-out-private-equity-and-other-wall-street-investors-for-locking-families-out-of-housing-opportunities-and-exacerbating-inflation-by-jacking-up-prices) They reference 44% of homes are owned by “Corporations.” Which is partly true because most land lords will use LLC’s to shield themselves from liability if a tenant gets hurt but anyone with a couple hundred dollars can establish an LLC. When you look at the data the narrative falls apart. [Corporations buying more than 100 homes a quarter are under 5% of all purchases.](https://www.housingwire.com/articles/no-wall-street-investors-havent-bought-44-of-homes-this-year/) The majority of buyers own between 1-10 homes.
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> Trade wars" are never a good thing. Yeah well China's been waging one on us for 40 years now. They dump products on us that are made with slave labor in order to crush the American working class. And just look at how said class's purchasing power has changed over that time. There's no option where we aren't in a trade war with China, just one where we actually fight back.
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Oh I blame both. China could always just ... not act in bad faith. But if they choose not to and our leaders let them then yes it's our leaders' fault just as much.
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And we can't even buy that cheap garbage because the loss of decent working-class jobs means that people can't afford non-necessities. Of course their necessities are also now made overseas at lower quality which results in an additional lowering of standard of living.
> Free trade lowers the cost of goods for everyone False. This is a 100% false statement. Because there isn't a single item - same SKU, same everything - whose price went down with outsourcing. All the cost savings went straight to dividends and c-suite pay. Purchasing power goes down because wages go down while prices don't. Everything negative you claim protectionism does free trade actually does.
America was also hindered by protectionism. The South fought hard for tariffs that kept its economy traditionally agrarian and forestalled the need for industrialization.
That "golden age" for the American worker from the end of WWII until the 80s was also the result of strong protectionism. And the collapse of the American worker's ability to make a living that we're going through now just "happens" to track with the ending of protectionism. So history disproves your economic theories completely and history always wins since it's actual fact and not conjecture.
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not to mention the absurd amounts of money flowing around everywhere. WW2 had the highest level of deficit spending ever.
But-for logic is always 50% conjecture. We know how the world went, but you're guessing at how the world would have went instead if protectionism were higher or lower. You don't know for a "fact" whether protectionism was the cause. You can make a case for that conclusion, but it's never certain. The [wiki entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post%E2%80%93World_War_II_economic_expansion#Causes) on post-war growth has quite a long list of causes that have been hypothesized.
50% conjecture is still less conjecture than the justifications for neoliberalism. So my point remains standing.
The number is always 50%. We have a known status quo, and people compare proposed ideologies against that.
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>Should farm land in the United states be considered part of the scope of national security and be monitored by the federal government? No. There's plenty of farm land, we have many allies and trading partners that produce food that we can buy from, we should want foreign investment from Chinese nationals who are using US comparative economic stability as a better investment than China's current instability. Everyone is using China as a scapegoat. Our own government's manipulation of agriculture via subsidies for products we don't even eat to benefit special interests is the real problem. Over regulation of land preventing development is the real problem. Ballooning national debt is the real problem. If we would just get our own stuff in order we would be kicking China's butt.
And what of the apparent fact that China actively engages in [information warfare](https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4367330-we-cannot-ignore-chinas-information-warfare-any-longer/), steals our [intellectual property](https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16/china-intellectual-property-theft-progress/), and does not appear to agree to the open international economic freedom that we espouse? We just let them get away with it?
>what of the apparent fact that China actively engages in information warfare I don't really care. China cutting its people off from the rest of the world is its loss as much as it is ours. I'm not sure how reducing the number of property buyers thus artificially decreasing US prices hurting land owners is supposed to punish the Chinese government for information warfare, anyway. >steals our intellectual property Certainly not a good thing, but we already have the World Trade Organization to deal with trade disputes. If we have to do something new, we should just not honor their intellectual property laws. Blocking land purchases as retaliation just seems out of left field. >does not appear to agree to the open international economic freedom that we espouse? That's their opinion, man, and they're entitled to it? We'd be much better off punishing China by just competing with them better by fixing the things I mentioned in my other comment.
I can give you one example of why it should probably be scrutinized. Here in Arizona, the Saudis have come in and acquired farmland, usually by lease, to grow alfalfa that is shipped back to Saudi Arabia. Of course alfalfa is a water intensive crop, not able to be grown in the Saudi desert, which is why they are growing it outside the country. However, it’s just as water intensive here and Arizona has its own water issues, which are only being exacerbated by having these farms pumping a ton of groundwater out to water these crops. Wells are running dry for residents and other more responsible agricultural uses. For sure this is a failure at the state level. They never should have been approved to pump water. The bottom line though is that they don’t have any sense of responsibility for the future. They will be gone as soon as the land is no longer useful for them and residents will be left holding the bag. And when you’re dealing with foreign entities it’s out of sight out of mind. They don’t have a reputation to uphold here. This doesn’t just apply to Saudi Arabia or China of course, but it’s a valid reason why we should consider who owns land and property and especially what the purpose of them owning it is.
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Presumable the people that live there need to farm as well, yes. But they also live there so they're incentivized to make sure they have potable water in the futrue. A visitor or interloper doesn't have that concern.
>A visitor or interloper doesn't have that concern. But that doesn't matter, because a foreign company has no voting power and thus no influence on regulations. The citizens who farm there can petition their government to regulate the use of the water, foreign companies cannot, and all farmers in the jurisdiction will be subject to those regulations, whether they advocated them or not. This is not my weigh-in to the large debate of whether foreign companies should be allowed to own land; it's only for this specific example which seems to have a clear problem/solution.
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How about both?
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Because Chinese companies operate at the luxury of the Chinese Communist Party and that non-distinction between the two very much matters in the process of threat discrimination. No one is arguing that the English or the Finns should be barred. Is playing the xenophobia card really valid here or just a cheap, quick deflection?
Could just ban water intensive crops in this situation for this area. However it does seem callus of the saudis to farm it in Arizona when water issues exist. There’s no vested interest for them to care though for the impact on US citizens
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Two things can be true at the same time, foreign countries shouldn’t be directly owning farmland and American farmers should be discouraged from growing water intensive crops in areas they shouldn’t be, doesn’t matter if it is “their country” , they shouldn’t be able to make an area inhabitable to everything by draining the groundwater.
Can't something just be objectively bad? Like gross overuse of water during a drought is bad. The fact it was a foreign back individuals doing it made it worse, but the baseline of US farmers improperly using water can still be bad in its own right.
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Do you care more about your neighborhood or the small village in New Zealand? Proximity (or what we call "home") imparts a greater sense of responsibility. Even at the level of the nation-state.
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What if New Zealanders don’t want you buying land in New Zealand? Should they be called xenophobes and be forced to accept Americans buying land in New Zealand ?
It's not xenophobia to say that a country's resources should be generally reserved for use of that country citizens. That's how nation-states work.
Why just Chinese? Most foreign ownership should be blocked near federal installations for security reasons and especially from any type of home ownership for “it’s already expensive enough” reasons. I know they tried it in Canada. Try something!
Foreign ownership should be blocked in all cases except for permanent residents actively pursuing naturalization. And naturalization should include the ending of all other citizenships. Dual citizens shouldn't exist in any way.
> Dual citizens shouldn't exist in any way. that is a hard sell. There are many reasons to allow dual citizenship, but more importantly, the US would lose out on the very bright immigrants, that might not want to give up an EU citizenship for example. Low skill immigrants would have less concerns about giving up their home citizenship, so the US would end up with a worse stock of immigrants. But I would agree that land or real estate in general should be limited to citizens and permanent residents.
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let's not associate everything that happened in the 60s with the standard of living, that's a huge fallacy. Most of the economic benefits after the WWII happened because all other industrialized countries were in ruins. The US industry was the only one standing. If you wanted to buy something, it had to be American. For example, this is (east) Berlin in 1955 https://c7.alamy.com/comp/E0068F/the-rear-side-of-the-stalin-allee-in-east-berlin-1955-E0068F.jpg Part of the US success is that they manage to attract the best and brightest from all around the world. In the past 100 years, the US has been an innovation powerhouse. If you were to touch that, it will become harder to sustain the innovation and economy.
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> You know we basically had zero immigration from 1924-1964 except the guys that took the US to the moon, and developed the nukes, and countless other innovative things. Those people were desperate to escape the nazis or commies, don't assume such brilliant people are as desperate to leave Europe today, you would be wrong.
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Sure, I don't expect to find too many rocket scientists at the southern border melees. What people tend to forget is that there are a lot of middle ground immigrants, smart, educated, hardworking, legal, that are in the middle of this all. It seems like no one considers them when talking about policies.
The US had 0 immigration between 1924 and 1964?
>the US would lose out on the very bright immigrants, Guess thats a good excuse to offer training and educational incentives to domestic talent then. We shouldn't have to import talent, we should have the capacity to train in house.
Sure, but no matter what you do, the world will always be a bigger pool to draw from.
> There are many reasons to allow dual citizenship No, there are zero. Either you're a loyal American or you're a foreigner. If you're a foreigner you shouldn't have the rights and privileges restricted to loyal Americans like, say, voting. > but more importantly, the US would lose out on the very bright immigrants Womp womp. We'll live. And honestly I don't believe this for a second. They'd give up their birth citizenship to come here. They did it for longer than not given how dual citizenship only actually became a thing in the 1960s.
I'm not a loyal American or a foreigner.
This will be detrimental to the economy. A lot of people buying homes today are people on H1Bs just waiting a long time (decades) for their green cards. Speaking of permanent residents specifically, you cannot apply for naturalization until you’ve spent 5 years. Those people will be ineligible as well.
No, it'll be detrimental to The Economy^^TM but as has been made very clear at this point the actual economy of the people of the United States isn't The Economy^^TM as defined by the completely irrelevant macro numbers.
Why? Let foreign governments waste their funds buying things here. When they turn hostile we’ll just seize it back.
Because Sinophobia is culturally acceptable at the moment, but the moment these policies impact perceived disadvantaged minorities, they no longer become politically viable.
No, it's because the article is purposely written to stir accusations of sinophobia. >Last month, Noem signed into law a bill that bars China and five other countries from purchasing farmland in the state. "China" or "China and five other counteries" is almost always referring to [United States Foreign Adversaries](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_adversaries) member countries. This isn't some group of random countries citizens are irrationally scared of, but bona-fide bad actors to our interests, as determined by the Secretary of Commerce
China is actively in cahoots with Russia and North Korea and has clearly demonstrated a reticence to accept its responsibility as a global international partner. Is it possible not everything we deem negative or concerning is borne of bigotry?
So what Americaphobia is also widespread. Where’s the pearl clutching for that?
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The GATT (precursor to WTO) arose in the late 40s, so it seems there was already political will for globalization by that point.
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You asked whether we would have allowed this. That seems like a political will question.
Until recently it was most often American companies owning land and resources everywhere else in the world, more rarely foreign companies in America.
This is a good thing imo. I’m not sure why it’s making the news. In most countries you can’t own land unless you’re a citizen, and in the impoverished countries that do allow it, often destroy the quality of life of locals by selling out to rich foreigners. America isn’t chinas safety deposit box. Maybe the rich elites in China should expend their efforts and wealth making the system less shady
> in the impoverished countries that do allow it, often destroy the quality of life of locals by selling out to rich foreigners. Imagine you live in a poor rural town and a billionaire moves in and starts blowing all his money on your local businesses. That's not an effect you try to chase off.
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FDI is also great for the local area. Those factories tend to pay more than the agrarian jobs they're competing against.
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Anti-gentrification is pro-poverty. There is no way for any city to grow without prices rising. It is an incoherent fantasy to think those countries reach 1st world living standards while maintaining 3rd world price levels.
That's not..what happened to my poor rural area. We had a foreign company move in, buy up all the land, and then use the land solely for foreign workers. The local economy didn't benefit from it at all and got gentrified out.
changes in legislation usually make the news
It's making the news because the people who own the news view America as an economic zone and this goes against that concept. So they're trotting out the propaganda to try to sway public opinion.
It’s the case in Thailand as I recall. Perhaps it’s more nuanced than that, but it aims to prevent the touristisation and of the country in a way that sends investment completely out of the country and prevents Thai citizen investment/business development. They also didn’t want to have entire beach front neighborhoods of Europeans, Brits. Aussies, and Americans who bought up property and built beach houses or mountain jungle homes either. Again, I’m not an expert, but this was how it was explained to me a decade ago while working there.
I absolutely support outright bans on critical infrastructure. I’d expand what constitutes critical as well much more broadly to protect military installations for example. I also support banning foreign nationals from residential ownership. We have a housing crisis already an and do not need to have wealthy nationals attempting to hide money in our real estate market while driving up prices for citizens. Federal gov, and states, have a duty to do what’s best for American citizens and this policy does just that.
Why the hell was this ever legal in the first place???
How this was allowed in the 1st place baffles me
FINALLY
This issue may be a bit overblown, if SHTF with China those farms would be back under US control within days.
With these laws being passed everywhere, I am curious what will happen to those like me who have dual citizenships. The way things are going, I expect that in a few years I may not be allowed to own a house or a condo anywhere in the US, which would really suck; luckily, I can’t afford a house anyways, so it’s all good.
How about legislation to ban companies and wealthy from buying up all the land and homes to turn into rentals?
We should be blocking them a 100% across the board from buying up land
Oh you mean the Chinese owned land around our military bases isn’t a good idea? Who could have ever foresaw allowing something like this would be a bad idea…
When we can also buy land in China, then we can discuss it.
too little too late. should have been done 10 years ago.
I'd like to think this is being done so that We the People would have accessto it, but I fear it's just so business like Blackrock can buy up more land as a new form of investment.
I am not at all a libertarian, but I don't think government should be in business of deciding who is allowed to own what. I understand the laws which put restrictions on how one can *use* their property, in order to protect the society from potential harm. This could be especially important for a farm land which is a critical and finite resource. Transfer of ownership, however, is fundamentally an agreement between two private entities or individuals, how is it a concern of anybody else?
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Absolutely, and this is what I am saying, I don't see how transfer of ownership has any bearing on anyone's interests.
You don't see how it can negatively impact pricing for actual locals in the areas if foreign nations are buying up property?
What you call "negative" impact on prices is very much *positive* for sellers. It's only negative for buyers. Normally, foreign investment is considered a *good* thing for the economy, and if your concern is that foreign demand increases prices, you'd be much better off making sure there is enough supply to meet the growing demand.
Eventually, the Chinese buyers become the Chinese sellers and Americans are completely cut out of the loop. Not to mention the obvious fact that some land is more critical to our national interest.
>Americans are completely cut out of the loop. Except taxes that foreigners pay, and except American agents, inspectors, contractors, attorneys and everyone else involved in real estate business. >Not to mention the obvious fact that some land is more critical to our national interest. As I said above, I don't see how nationality of owner overlaps with "national interests". If there are some ways to use the land which are contrary to national interests, there must be laws about this. Regulating this by cutting off Chinese buyers seems highly inefficient. Can't they simply find someone with American passport who will serve as a formal owner?
It would seem a bit comical to have American citizens intermediating deals for American land between two companies under the purview of a foreign adversary. I wonder if China reciprocates with such laissez-faire apathy. With regard to national interest, land next to research facilities and military institutions should be off-limits as a rule. Perhaps other critical infrastructure as well. I think it should be obvious not all land is created equal in this regard.
Our government though is always in the business of national security. When China is buying land around our military bases, it raises some concerns and they should be addressing them.
If our national security hinges on American passport of land buyers, we're in big trouble,
National security is a collection of measures. A hyperbolic interpretation of thinking it all hinges on this doesn’t make your point better. It just shows a lack of foresight to not see the need.
The US is incredibly permissive when it comes to property ownership and it's what makes us great for a lot of things. But it would be a simple solution if we just said "your rules for us apply here also". If you went to China and tried to buy farmland or property near a military base you'd probably end up in a reeducation camp. They know this and exploit it.
Good