Senator Seeks Review of Large Farmland Sale to Chinese Buyer

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., urged USDA and the Treasury Department to review how Chinese businessman Chen Tianqiao was able to buy almost 200,000 acres of Oregon farmland in 2015 without disclosing the purchase to the federal government.

In a Jan. 12 letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Tester said the transaction, which wasn’t publicly revealed until recently, made Chen the second-largest foreign owner of American agricultural land.

"While the purchase itself may have been legal, I am troubled that for nearly a decade, it appears that this landowner failed to report the transaction to relevant entities like the Department of Agriculture (USDA) as required by the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA)," the senator wrote. "This specific example highlights the gaps in the vetting, tracking, and potential prevention of purchases of agricultural land by foreign entities."

Tester asked Vilsack and Yellen to provide recommendations to improve the government's monitoring of such land sales.

In a statement provided to Export Compliance Daily on Jan. 16, a USDA spokesperson said AFIDA requires foreign buyers of farmland to self-report their transactions at the county level. The department “does not have the capacity to check several thousand county clerk and recorder offices to verify compliance with a self-reporting requirement,” the spokesperson explained.

USDA learned of the Oregon sale “through the publication of Oregon's 2023 tax records and subsequent reporting, and we are taking steps within the bounds of our limited authority to learn more about the underlying transaction and take relevant enforcement steps,” the spokesperson added. "Any significant changes to this law and its related processes would require action by Congress, though USDA is working to make improvements through regulatory and administrative updates as much as possible."

Treasury and Chen didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

In addition to publicly releasing his letter, Tester called for Congress to pass his legislation to prohibit China and other "foreign adversaries" from buying American farmland. Such a restriction was included in the Senate version of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (see 2307260029), but it did not make it into the final NDAA that Congress passed in December.

"While we learn more about the specifics around this unfolding situation [in Oregon], it highlights the need for Congress to do more to protect American agricultural security and prevent our foreign adversaries from controlling our country’s food supply," Tester said.