‘Protect American property’: Sen. Blackburn drops bills to root out ’embedded’ foreign interests

Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn will soon introduce a trio of bills to counter the malign influence of foreign adversaries stateside and cement actions already taken by the Trump administration, RealClearPolitics is first to report.

The first bill would ban the purchase of “agricultural land” by any foreign individuals or businesses associated with an adversarial country. Chinese interests already own as much as 370,000 acres of farmland, according to one estimate, some of it near U.S. military bases. Fueling the bipartisan concern: fears that proximity to those sensitive installations could make them prone to drone attack or surveillance.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced last month that the federal government would move to ban sales of farmland nationwide to buyers tied to China. If signed into law, the Blackburn bill would deliver on that promise.

While China is the primary target, the legislation would also prohibit purchases from North Korea, Iran, and Russia.

The second bill focuses on the capital city: It would require the District of Columbia to end so-called “sister city” arrangements with adversarial nations. Washington, D.C., has entered into no less than 15 non-formal arrangements with cities around the world. Some are innocuous, such as Athens and Paris. One is a relic of hopes not realized.

Then-Mayor Marion Barry signed the Washington-Beijing Sister City Friendship agreement in 1984 when the U.S. still hoped that normalizing relations with China would lead to liberalization. It did not. Blackburn and other Republicans now warn that “sister city” arrangements, while informal, provide an adversarial regime a sort of soft power through diplomatic legitimacy and access to sensitive U.S. institutions.

The third bill would require the Department of Housing and Urban Development to work with state and local governments to assess whether and how foreign buyers, including those using shell corporations, “are distorting U.S. housing markets and threatening national security.”

The legislation comes as Trump shakes up the world stage through a series of new trade deals and reevaluated alliances. Even as the president insists that U.S. relations with China are improving, his administration has taken steps to gain an upper hand in the rivalry with the communist superpower. He has bolstered military spending. He has deregulated the artificial intelligence industry in order to maintain U.S. dominance in that field. He insists that the United States will remain preeminent.

Perhaps most significantly, Trump made a rising China a bipartisan concern. While previous administrations cast a wary eye on an increasingly bellicose Beijing, his first candidacy thrust the issue front and center nearly a decade ago. And former President Joe Biden did not throttle back during his time in office, notably keeping Trump’s tariffs on China in place and describing the coming century as a competition between autocracy and democracy.

Blackburn shares those concerns. Her current effort focuses on the domestic front.

“The United States cannot allow foreign adversaries like Communist China to quietly embed themselves in our communities and near our critical infrastructure,” the senator told RCP.

“We have a responsibility to identify and address these threats,” Blackburn added, before describing her legislative practice as an effort that “shines a light on these activities and will help protect American property and sovereignty.”