Missouri to Seize Chinese-owned Farmland

By Paul Dragu

Missouri is confiscating Chinese-owned farmland within the state and other assets as part of an effort to collect a $24 billion civil judgment.

A federal judge in the Show Me State ruled on March 7 that the Chinese government covered up the start of the Covid-19 event and hoarded medical protective equipment, resulting in massive economic and individual harm to the state as a whole.

Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri imposed the hefty judgment against China, its governing Communist Party, local governments in China, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and a health agency.

China, for its part, refused to participate in the legal process. Missouri’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, said of the matter:

China refused to show up to court, but that doesn’t mean they get away with causing untold suffering and economic devastation. We intend to collect every penny by seizing Chinese-owned assets, including Missouri farmland.

Bailey’s office said it would consult with the Trump administration on how to move forward with seizing the land.

No Law Against Foreign Ownership

There is no law restricting absolutely the amount of private American agricultural land that can be owned by foreigners. But, according to a congressional report on foreign ownership and holdings of U.S. agricultural land, “some states limit or have proposed to prohibit certain foreign persons and entities from acquiring or owning an interest in agricultural land within their state.” The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has identified 339 counties in Iowa, Kansas, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as having the strictest restrictions on foreign ownership of agricultural land and other nonagricultural real estate.

How Much American Land Is Owned by Foreigners?

Foreign citizens, companies, or countries owned about 40.8 million acres of U.S. farmland as of 2021, according to the USDA. The largest foreign holder of U.S. land is Canada, with nearly 13 million acres. That is followed by the Netherlands, with about 5 million, and Italy, with 2.7 million. China’s portion is comparatively small, just under one percent, or about 384,000 acres. The top three states with land owned by the Chinese are Texas, with about 192,000 acres; North Carolina, with about 49,000 acres; and Missouri, with about 43,000 acres.

Georgia Republican Rep. Mike Collins pointed out in a July 26, 2023 press release that Chinese ownership of U.S. land has increased 30 percent since 2019. NewsNation reported that from 2019 to 2021, Chinese U.S. agricultural land ownership jumped 55 percent, from 247,000 acres to 384,000.

A major concern among U.S. policymakers is that China is buying certain tracts of land for spying purposes. In June 2024, the Treasury Department proposed a new rule that would give the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States the ability to block Chinese corporations from owning land near U.S. military bases.

The USDA’s data on Chinese land ownership previously mentioned doesn’t account for the 300 acres that Chinese manufacturer Fufeng Group bought in 2022 near the Grand Forks Air Force base in North Dakota. And that’s not the first time the Chinese have bought land near military bases. In May 2024, the Joe Biden administration issued an order that forced Chinese-backed cryptocurrency mining firm, MineOne, to divest from land it owned in Wyoming near the Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, which houses nuclear weapons. And in 2018, the subsidiary of a Chinese energy company bought land near the Air Force’s largest pilot training base in southern Texas, Laughlin Air Force Base.

Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act Does Not Apply

A spokesman for China’s embassy in Washington, Liu Pengyu, said his government does not recognize the recent Missouri judgment. And he threatened “countermeasures,” according to The New York Times:

“The so-called lawsuit has no basis in fact, law or international precedence,” [Liu] said in a statement. “China does not and will not accept it. If China’s interests are harmed, we will firmly take reciprocal countermeasures according to international law.”

Foreign governments can be sued in U.S. courts. However, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) of 1976 limits federal and state courts from doing so unless one of the few exceptions to the law applies. Legal experts say one of those exceptions is when rights in property taken in violation of international law are in issue and that property or any property exchanged for such property is present in the United States in connection with a commercial activity carried on in the United States by the foreign state.

In this case, the judge ruled that exception indeed applied. From the judge’s ruling:

Analyzing the statutory exceptions to immunity under the FSIA, the Eighth Circuit concluded that Count IV of Missouri’s Complaint, that Defendants “hoarded personal-protective equipment while the rest of the world was in the dark about the disease,” satisfied the commercial activity exception to the FSIA.

Is China Responsible for America’s Irresponsible Covid Response?

Is this lawsuit an excuse to confiscate land owned by a hostile foreign nation? That would make more sense. A good case can be made that the response to the virus (as well as America’s voluntary refusal to manufacture basic medical necessities) caused more harm than the virus itself — or China’s lies about it.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting gain-of-function research with funding from the U.S. through EcoHealth Alliance. Would Covid-19 even exist without the U.S.-funded experiments?

Moreover, state governments implemented a litany of counterproductive protocols. For instance, in New York, then-governor Andrew Cuomo forced nursing homes to take in Covid-19-positive patients. That led to the infection and deaths of the most Covid-vulnerable demographics, older people. Then he tried to cover up the damage his actions created. Cuomo is so devastated by his Covid-era performance that he’s running for governor again.

And the federal government’s “public health” agencies pushed through state and local health departments one-size-fits-all approaches that resulted in delayed care to anyone with health issues not related to Covid; the shuttering of thousands of businesses, many of which never recovered; the isolation of school children through remote learning; and the vilification of effective off-label medicine such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

Relying on the Enemy

As for the argument regarding medical protective equipment, what rational nation relies on an enemy for its most basic medicine? Not only is China the main producer of protective medical equipment, but the U.S. depends on it for basic antibiotics.

Yes, China lied from the outset, but that’s what communist regimes do.

And why did the U.S. model its Covid mitigation protocols on China’s authoritarian one?

If the U.S. is going to take a second look at that tumultuous time, as it should, it would be wise to begin by looking within first.

Although presidential candidate Donald Trump promised during his reelection campaign in 2024 to ban Chinese nationals from buying U.S. farmland, it’s time for Congress to consider passing a law prohibiting governments who’ve been poisoning American citizens and preparing for war with us from owning any land within our borders.

Paul Dragu

Paul Dragu is a senior editor at The New American, award-winning reporter, host of The New American Daily, and writer of Defector: A True Story of Tyranny, Liberty and Purpose.

Published with permission of thenewamerican.com