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Conor right here: Regardless of the next piece’s greatest efforts to deal with discrimination in opposition to Chinese language ag buyers, the bigger story seems to be one other case of MAGA lacking in motion. Politicians and regulators stay unwilling or unable to tackle monied pursuits even within the title of securing the nation’s meals provide.
By Juan Vassallo who covers agribusiness and the meat trade in Oklahoma for Examine Midwest. Initially revealed by Examine Midwest.
Oklahoma lawmakers have handed measures limiting overseas possession of farmland in response to considerations about Chinese language nationals and corporations shopping for agricultural land within the state.
Whereas roughly 4.3% of Oklahoma farmland is foreign-owned, in line with the USDA’s most up-to-date filings, most of that’s held by Canadian and European corporations for renewable power tasks. Lower than 1% of that share is Chinese language.
Nonetheless, anti-China rhetoric has largely pushed laws, and a latest ballot exhibits Republicans nationwide are involved about Chinese language possession of U.S. farmland. Regardless of that concern, this new state laws consists of exemptions for Chinese language-owned meals provide corporations.
The carve-outs particularly exempt Smithfield Meals, the one Chinese language-owned firm with farmland in Oklahoma. Smithfield Meals, owned by China’s WH Group, is just not affected by the restrictions and continues to lift hogs on roughly 2,575 acres in northwest Oklahoma.
Oklahoma’s restrictions mirror a broader nationwide motion in principally Republican states to curb overseas farmland possession, pushed by safety considerations over international locations the federal government deems “hostile.” But, in contrast to states corresponding to Arkansas, Oklahoma lawmakers have proven little curiosity in forcing Chinese language-owned corporations already working within the state to divest or restrict their potential to develop.
In 2023, Arkansas Legal professional Common Tim Griffin ordered the agri-chemical agency Syngenta, owned by the Chinese language conglomerate ChemChina, to promote its 160-acre analysis web site and fined the corporate $280,000. The transfer adopted a brand new state legislation limiting overseas investments from sure international locations.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders touted the choice throughout a press convention saying the Trump Administration’s Nationwide Farm Safety Motion Plan, a twelve-page define aimed toward “addressing the crucial for agriculture safety in America.”
“I’m so happy with the truth that Arkansas was the primary state within the nation to kick a Chinese language-owned firm off of our farmland and out of our state,” Sanders mentioned on the press convention in July. “And we made them pay for it. Very Trump-esque.”
Throughout the identical press convention, Trump commerce adviser Peter Navarro introduced up Smithfield Meals, noting that after its buy by the WH Group, it “now mainly controls an eighth of the world’s pork provide.” Counties the place Smithfield operates in Oklahoma — Beaver, Harper, and Ellis — are even highlighted on a map included in Trump’s plan. Neither the plan nor these concerned in its rollout specified any steps they may take to drive Smithfield to divest.
The Smithfield Exception
Oklahoma Senate Invoice 212 expanded current restrictions on overseas possession of farmland.
The legislation, which took impact in November 2023 — across the similar time Arkansas ordered Syngenta to divest — may have impacted Smithfield Meals’ operations in Oklahoma. However the next yr, lawmakers added an exception: landownership restrictions don’t apply to overseas corporations which have an settlement with the Committee on International Funding within the U.S. (CFIUS).
CFIUS is an interagency committee that critiques overseas investments in American corporations and actual property to see in the event that they pose nationwide safety dangers. It might probably approve, block, or require adjustments to offers to guard U.S. pursuits.
WH Group’s 2013 acquisition of Smithfield was cleared by CFIUS, successfully shielding it from Oklahoma’s overseas possession restrictions.
“We’re honoring the Structure by these worldwide companies being vetted by the federal authorities,” says Oklahoma State Sen. Brent Howard, a Republican from Altus who launched the laws that shielded Smithfield.
Smithfield Meals has repeatedly rejected claims of “infiltration” of the U.S. pork trade by the Chinese language Communist Occasion, emphasizing that it’s managed by American executives. “We at the moment personal roughly 85,000 acres of farmland [in the U.S.], and that quantity has declined significantly because the 2013 WH Group acquisition,” says Ray Atkinson, a senior director at Smithfield Meals. “The farmland we personal doesn’t current a nationwide safety danger and represents lower than 1/one centesimal of 1 % of all American farmland.”
Enforcement Stays Selective
Throughout a September listening to on the Oklahoma State Capitol, a handful of lawmakers and state officers convened to debate the perceived risk of the Chinese language Communist Occasion within the state. Visitor audio system on the listening to included Jan Jekielek, a journalist and editor for the far-right media outlet The Epoch Occasions, and Tom Rawlings, coverage director of State Protect — each outspoken anti-China organizations.
Though the visitor audio system supplied no concrete examples of Chinese language interference in state politics, they advocated for a state-level International Brokers Registration Act, which might require anybody performing on behalf of overseas governments to reveal their ties.
Throughout his presentation, Brad Clark, normal counsel with the Oklahoma lawyer normal’s workplace, turned the dialogue to farmland. Clark defined how the brand new legal guidelines can bolster the state’s crackdown on unlawful marijuana operations, a few of that are run by Chinese language people.
After Oklahoma legalized medical marijuana in 2018, the trade has drawn an inflow of out-of-state growers. Alongside that development, there have been reviews of labor exploitation and illegally operated farms, together with some linked to Chinese language organized crime.
Clark says the lawyer normal’s workplace at the moment has 150 pending circumstances involving unlawful marijuana farms. However in an interview with Examine Midwest, he didn’t specify if any of these circumstances contain Chinese language nationals or illegally owned farmland, citing the continued nature of the investigations.
The workplace says it has no closed circumstances associated to illicit land use.
Absent from the dialogue was Smithfield Meals, the one Chinese language-owned firm that has lobbied state officers nationwide whereas additionally proudly owning farmland in Oklahoma.
In 2024 and 2025, Smithfield spent at the least $1.58 million on lobbying and greater than $90,000 in political contributions through the 2024 election cycle. The corporate is represented on the board of the Oklahoma Pork Council, a commerce group with registered lobbyists.
Throughout the listening to, Howard requested Clark whether or not SB 212 has pressured any overseas corporations in Oklahoma to divest.
“We obtained questions early on from companies on mergers and acquisitions as they had been going by these processes and got here to the conclusion that SB 212 was taking impact quickly,” Clark mentioned, in response. “[They] wanted to restructure that merger, that acquisition, so it’s extremely probably that [divestment] has been concerned.”
The lawyer normal’s workplace declined to reply Examine Midwest’s questions on which companies altered or deserted their merger or acquisition plans, or reply particular questions on Smithfield Meals and potential divestment.
“The lawyer normal is in opposition to and can battle any particular person or entity that exploits Oklahoma jobs to overseas nationalists or others who aren’t Oklahomans,” Clark says. “And that will surely embrace overseas adversaries like China.”
Clark additionally famous that nobody from the Trump administration has but reached out to the lawyer normal’s workplace to work on the Nationwide Farm Safety Motion Plan, the administration’s report that highlights the counties the place Smithfield Meals operates within the state.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and different Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation have been vocal about what they see because the risk from China and the necessity to limit overseas possession of farmland. Final yr, Stitt issued an govt order aimed toward lowering Oklahoma’s publicity to the Chinese language Communist Occasion.
Most foreign-owned land in Oklahoma is held by Canadian and European corporations for renewable power tasks, like this wind farm in northwest Oklahoma. photograph by Zach Lucero, for Examine Midwest
On the federal stage, Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma launched the bipartisan Safety and Oversight of Worldwide Landholdings (SOIL) Act of 2025, calling for necessary CFIUS evaluation of overseas agricultural land purchases. Oklahoma U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas launched the Agricultural Threat Evaluate Act of 2025, which might make the secretary of agriculture a everlasting member of CFIUS.
Stitt’s govt order, which directs the state’s retirement system to divest from overseas adversary international locations like China, makes no point out of Smithfield Meals and potential divestment, and the payments launched by Lankford and Lucas earlier this yr are pending in Congress.
Stitt, Lankford, and Lucas didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Though Trump’s Nationwide Farm Safety Motion Plan emphasizes defending the nation’s farmland, it additionally requires efforts to “strengthen home agricultural productiveness.”
Smithfield Meals controls an estimated 23% of the U.S. pork market, whereas JBS, a Brazilian conglomerate, holds an identical share of the U.S. beef provide—a proven fact that was identified by Kansas senator Roger Marshall through the plan’s launch.
Each JBS and Smithfield went public this yr, a transfer that might assist them develop operations and additional solidify their presence within the U.S. meals system.
Regardless of introducing laws throughout the nation to limit overseas possession of farmland, lawmakers don’t seem motivated to focus on corporations like JBS or Smithfield, or to deliver extra of the meals provide chain below home management.
A research from Michigan State College analyzed 143 payments aimed toward limiting overseas possession of agricultural land, launched throughout 34 states, together with the actions of greater than 6,700 state legislators. Regardless of China’s nominal make-up of complete farmland within the state and throughout the nation, the researchers discovered that worry and skepticism about Chinese language affect within the US is what continues to drive the laws.
“Of all of the farmland that’s owned by foreigners, Chinese language entities have a stake in lower than 1% of that,” says Dr. David Ortega, a professor of meals economics and coverage at Michigan State College and one of many research’s authors. “We’re concentrating on pursuits from particular international locations that may result in rises in xenophobia and discrimination.”
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