During a campaign swing through western Pennsylvania this week, former President Donald Trump met with local farmers to talk about inflation, energy costs and, perhaps surprisingly, foreign policy.
Trump says the unique threat to America’s security posed by China means it’s time to ban Chinese nationals from purchasing U.S. farmland. He made his remarks in Westmoreland County at an event hosted by the Protecting America Initiative led by Richard Grenell, a former ambassador to Germany, and former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick and Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R-Westmoreland) also attended.
Trump said he negotiated a deal requiring China to buy $50 billion of American farm products. But the Biden administration isn’t honoring that agreement.
“Now they don’t enforce it. I enforced it. Every single week, I’d go into the office, I’d say, ‘How’s China doing, buying the product?’
“‘Good, sir. Good. They’re doing good.’ And they were doing good, because they knew I was watching,” Trump said.
“I don’t think Biden is exactly watching. Do you? Does anybody think that Biden is? Let’s check it. I don’t think so. And it’s a shame. And that number is way lower than it’s supposed to be.”
Grenell warned China poses a direct threat to American democracy and national security.
“China has quietly but strategically worked against us whenever we are distracted by wars or COVID,” said Grenell. “China goes in and absolutely tries to distract the American people. Quietly, they go after our local and state politicians, they go after our manufacturing. And there is no question that they are looking at some point to leverage that activity.”
“China is getting into our farmland,” said Grenell.
Zeldin said Trump understands the CCP threat and protected America. China now owns 449,442 acres of agricultural land in the U.S., up 82 percent from three years before. Pennsylvania is 26 percent farmland.
“America’s food supply and the farmland that produces it is critical to our national security interest, especially due to China’s aggressive ventures into the U.S. food supply,” said Zeldin. In 2018, Trump signed a law requiring the government to review CCP land purchases around critical infrastructure like ports and military bases. Trump put in place the USMCA trade deal to replace NAFTA that resulted in $2 billion in annual exports. Vice President Kamala Harris, then a California senator, voted against it.
Harris also opposed Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports and cast the deciding vote for the Biden-Harris bill “that sold our auto industry to China,” said Zeldin.
Nick Steffari is a farmer who raises freezer beef and hay in Fayette County.
“I married the farmer’s daughter,” he said. “My wife and I are both energy workers. With the energy transition in Pennsylvania, our ability to take our pay and put those resources back in the farm has been tremendous. Without that energy job, we wouldn’t have been able to better our farm and better our situation.
“As you sit here today, you’re sitting on top of the Marcellus and Utica shale, the most prolific shale plays in the world are underneath your feet. My family depends on my salary and my wife’s salary.
“Appalachia produces nearly 30 billion cubic feet of gas per day. We could double the amount if we were just given the opportunity. Common sense policies allow for infrastructure to be built here. Pipelines. We need more pipelines. Doubling the output would be the equivalent of putting 10 million barrels of energy on the market for the world stage, providing opportunities for families to remain in farming because (gas companies) pay those royalties,” he said.
Kevin Sweeney, a cattle farmer from Washington County, wants to leave his farm to his kids and grandkids.
“I’m being approached by companies to put solar panels onto his farm for $3,000 per acre a month for 30 years,” he said. “Who subsidizes that? Our government?”
“They are,” said Trump. “And they’re allowing China to come in and just dominate the industry.”
Sweeney worries the federal government will condemn his land and turn it over to solar panel companies. He asked Trump about the “death tax” or inheritance tax.
Trump noted that he had rescinded the federal inheritance tax in his tax 2017 package that’s due to expire next year, so small farms and businesses could be passed down to the family. Democrats want to reinstate it.
“A lot of farmers are land rich but cash poor,” said Trump. “You leave it to your children…And [those heirs take out] big liens on the farms” and end up losing them to the banks.
“We got rid of the estate tax or the death tax and it will come back into play under Comrade Kamala,” said Trump. “They have unrealized capital gain…you’ll have every business person, every company leaving this country…It will affect farmers.”
McCormick, a military veteran and former hedge fund manager, accused the Biden administration of encouraging Chinese aggression through its lack of leadership.
“China is our adversary, smells weakness in all of its relationships with the United States because of the weak policies of Harris, Biden and Bob Casey… We have 52,000 farms [in Pennsylvania] and under the Biden-Harris-Casey administration it’s been a disaster,” McCormick.
Trump blasted McCormick’s opponent, incumbent Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D) as a do-nothing senator.
“Bob Casey has done nothing for farmers,” said Trump.
Casey did not respond when asked his position on selling farmland to China. Neither did Democratic Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Delaware) nor Madeleine Dean (D-Montgomery).
However, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Chester) voted for the Protecting American Agriculture from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 when it passed the House two weeks ago. Dean and Scanlon voted no. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Bucks) voted yes.
That bill requires the secretary of agriculture to report to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the government body that reviews foreign purchases and other investments from outside the United States. At CFIUS’ recommendation, the president may block transactions deemed threatening to American national security.
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