President Trump has ordered the federal government to strengthen measures against Chinese investments in the U.S. that pose national security dangers, in a sweeping policy directive.
The presidential national security memorandum signed on Friday seeks to promote foreign investment in the U.S. from friends and allies. The policy also wants to limit purchases from adversaries, “particularly from threats posed by foreign adversaries like the People’s Republic of China,” the White House stated in a fact sheet.
In particular, the Treasury Department-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, which reviews and can block foreign purchases of U.S. companies or land, is getting new powers to limit Chinese deals in the U.S.
“The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States will be used to restrict Chinese investments in strategic U.S. sectors like technology, critical infrastructure, healthcare, agriculture, energy, raw materials, and others,” the fact sheet said.
China reacted angrily to Mr. Trump’s directives over the weekend. The Ministry of Commerce complained that the new U.S. administration was “overstretching the concept of national security, engaging in discriminatory practices, and resorting to non-market measures that severely disrupt normal economic and trade cooperation between businesses of the two countries,” the state-controlled Global Times reported.
The new restrictions follow Chinese purchases of American farmland and companies over the past several decades, including land bought or attempted purchases near sensitive facilities.
During the Biden administration, CFIUS signed off on a retired Chinese general buying a ranch in southern Texas near Laughlin Air Force Base for a wind farm. Texas legislators, however, blocked the wind farm over concerns it could be used for spying. The land, however, remains owned by retired People’s Liberation Army Gen. Sun Guangxin. A Spanish company is now building the wind farm.
China also has been buying up American farmland in recent years. Analysts say this is a campaign to protect China from future famines by ensuring food supplies. Beijing already owns the largest U.S. pork producer, Smithfield Foods, which it bought in 2013. Chinese nationals currently own land near 19 military bases ranging from Florida to Hawaii.
In 2024, the White House said it was forcing a Chinese company, MineOne Partners Ltd., to sell land it had purchased land near an intercontinental ballistic missile base in Wyoming over spying concerns.
The Trump presidential memorandum said blocking Chinese purchases of farmland and real estate is needed to protect sensitive facilities. The measure also targets China’s access to U.S. experts with access to sensitive technologies.
The current CFIUS policy, which sought “mitigation agreements” to allow Chinese and other foreign purchases, is being changed to instead seeking allied buyers. Foreign purchases by the committee also will be approved based on whether the foreign investment serves American interests. Outbound U.S. investment to China related to semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, biotechnology and aerospace goods also is being restricted under the new policy.
The rules seek to counter what the White House said is China’s systematic purchases of American companies for accessing cutting-edge technologies and intellectual property.
China currently owns more than 350,000 acres of farmland in 27 states.
“China is exploiting our capital and ingenuity to fund and modernize their military, intelligence, and security operations, posing direct threats to United States security with weapons of mass destruction, cyber warfare, and more,” the fact sheet said. “Chinese hackers have repeatedly targeted U.S. entities, including recently breaching the Treasury Department’s CFIUS office, the entity responsible for reviewing foreign investments for national security risks.”
Mr. Trump stated that he will stop Chinese-owned firms from stealing intellectual property and American workers’ knowledge and sending it back to “Communist China.”
“We’re not going to let that happen,” Mr. Trump said in the fact sheet.
Mr. Trump also stated that the latest policy action follows earlier Trump administration policies designed to protect American innovation. This includes conducting a U.S. Trade Representative Office probe into Chinese “economic aggression,” such as forced technology transfers, unfair licensing and intellectual property policies.
The policy is called the “America First Investment Policy” in the memorandum and was sent to all secretaries and government agency leaders.
“Economic security is national security,” the memorandum states. China “does not allow United States companies to take over their critical infrastructure, and the United States should not allow [China] to take over United States critical infrastructure.”
Chinese investors are seeking the “crown jewels” of U.S. technology, food supplies, farmland, minerals, natural resources, ports and shipping terminals, the memo says. China also is using American capital to develop and modernize its military, intelligence and security services, a problem that “poses significant risk to the United States homeland and Armed Forces of the United States around the world.”
Any allied or friendly nation investment in the U.S. over $1 billion will be given fast-track approval, the memo says.
The administration also is reviewing whether to suspend or cancel the 1984 U.S.-China Income Tax Convention, China’s admission to the World Trade Organization and the granting of “most favored nation” trade status for China.
The agreements led to the “deindustrialization” of the U.S. and the technological advance of the Chinese military, the memo said.
“We will seek to reverse both those trends,” the memo stated.
Chuck DeVore, chief national initiative officer with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, said the new federal policy has boosted states’ efforts to protect against predatory Chinese practices.
“The president’s order is a necessary acknowledgment of the potential for malicious harm these Chinese practices have,” Mr. DeVore said.
Mr. DeVore said Chinese land holdings, like the large plot of land in Texas, could be used for both smuggling as well as military activities that threaten U.S. security.
Chinese farmland and other agricultural activities in the U.S. also could be used for biological sabotage against crops and animals in a future conflict.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.