Republican Rep. Mike Waltz: House GOP Will Investigate China Buying U.S. Farmland If They Get Majority

Republican Rep. Mike Waltz promised the House GOP would launch an investigation into the flow of money from Chinese-backed companies in the United States if his party regained the majority in Congress in November.

Speaking to DailyMail.com on Tuesday, Waltz warned that the steady breach not only posed a military threat, but could also have negative consequences for the US economy.

The Florida congressman also fears that the investments are already being used as leverage to expand Beijing’s influence around the world.

Recent reports have highlighted the increasing grip of Chinese companies on key sectors of the US economy through purchases of US farmland and the expansion of technology in rural areas.

The FBI has been sounding alarm bells about Beijing-influenced telecom giant Huawei monitoring cell phone towers in the rural Midwest near military bases. The agency warned, according to CNN, that the technology could disrupt Defense Department communications.

Meanwhile, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are concerned about China’s $2.6 million purchase of land by China’s Fufeng Group in North Dakota, just 20 minutes away from a major military base that houses some of the country’s most sensitive drone technology. is kept.

Waltz, a retired Green Beret, said former colleagues in the military have also expressed concern.

The military threat posed by the purchases is “clear in itself,” Waltz said, but added that another concern should be the effect Beijing’s farmland purchases would have on the US’s own supply chains.

“There’s the land near the base, but I think the main concern was that they’re investing heavily in America’s food supply,” he told DailyMail.com.

Two Fufeng Group employees visit Grand Fork, ND, on a site visit before the company purchases 300 acres of farmland

China 2025 has two goals. One is to dominate all these sectors, but to create dependency, global dependency — including the United States — on China for these sectors, and then you know, where the hammer really falls is they can use that dependency as geopolitical leverage. .’

“What we’re missing from the Biden administration,” he added, “is a national strategy to bring our supply chains back home, to reduce our dependence on our greatest adversary.”

When asked if China’s growing economic importance in the US could backfire on the country’s financial health, Waltz said “it could.”

“Right now, they can turn off the country’s antibiotics, if they want to. We no longer make penicillin in this country,” he said.

“The left wants to drive us to a new green economy, fine, who makes 90 percent of the solar panels, 70 percent of the wind turbines, controls the global lithium supply?”

The US has relied on China for penicillin since 2004, when it stopped all production of the drug. A factory in Tennessee started producing it again from 2021.

The congressman, a member of the House Republicans’ China Task Force, accused Beijing officials of evading responsibility with allegations of “xenophobia and racism.”

A Chinese technician wears a protective mask as he installs a new Huawei 5G station on a tower in a business district on April 23, 2020 in Beijing, China. The FBI reportedly sounded the alarm over Huawei cell towers in the rural Midwest, some near US military bases

“They actually abuse that through their manipulation of social media in our system whenever we try to take strong action to stop their influence,” he said.

“It will take a concerted effort. Even if the president doesn’t take the lead, I’m sure — I’m confident that the Republicans in Congress will.’

He confirmed that lawmakers would “absolutely” hold hearings on the matter.

“I think you’re going to see that from the China Task Force if the Republicans get the majority,” he said.

Waltz also called on House Democrats to join the effort.

“We need Democratic leadership to embrace this whole government effort, but I think they’re dragging cows to the progressive left,” he said.

However, the Republican did laud rare praise for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during her reported trip to Taiwan — which the Biden administration opposed behind the scenes, according to Bloomberg.

‘We can [Chinese Communist Party] dictate who our elected officials are going to visit among our allies,” Waltz said.

“Watching the Biden administration appease the Chinese Communist Party and then let the military know their concerns is exactly the wrong answer.”