In addition, there are complex corporate structure issues that help Chinese investors disguise ownership and avoid scrutiny.

Chinese billionaire Sun Guangxin has invested an estimated $110 million in Texas farmland. He planned to build a wind turbine farm on his 15,000-acre property in Valverde County so he could access the Texas power grid. There isn’t much in Valverde County other than Laughlin Air Force Base.

In 2020, Will Hurd (a lawmaker at the time) wrote an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle urging the federal government to call off the project on national security grounds.

Sun’s company, GH America, remainsed under a pay-cheque protection program during the pandemic. Received a loan of $163,513.

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Congress will authorise the USDA to break through Byzantine ownership structures and find true foreign owners of farmland. The recently introduced Safe Farmland Act of 2022 requires that all data on foreign investment in U.S. agriculture be made available to the State Department.

The Secretary of Agriculture will be added to the U.S. Foreign Investment Board, which reviews foreign cash flows into sensitive companies such as security camera equipment and semiconductors.

Afida is also past the deadline for a basic government audit that could uncover new data and improve disclosure practices. The last trial took place in 1989. Chinese giants like Fufeng Group, which happens to be buying large amounts of land near sensitive US military installations, will be kicked out if they don’t claim it.

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Source: Wall Street News