CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Republican J.D. Vance, running against Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) for the state’s open United States Senate seat, says the U.S. must “protect” American single-family homes and farmland from foreign investors like China and billionaires such as Bill Gates.
“The Founding Fathers recognize that to have a constitutional republic, we needed a nation of owners, not a nation of renters, and there is this large-scale effort to turn the American people into a permanent renter class,” Vance told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview.
The interview took place over lunch after Vance’s second campaign stop last Saturday in Chillicothe — roughly 100 miles outside of Cincinnati, Ohio.
The Buckeye State Republican was making a swing through the southeast part of the state to channel his Appalachian roots with two weeks left in the race. Throughout the day, Vance made multiple stops starting in the village of Gallipolis, a stone’s throw from West Virginia and ending 40 miles east of Cincinnati.
Vance told Breitbart News that forcing Americans into a permanent renter class rather than making home ownership easier is a “huge mistake.” Vance emphasized that single-family homes and farmland need to be protected from China-linked investors, Wall Street firms like BlackRock, and billionaires such as Bill Gates — the largest private owner of U.S. farmland.
“BlackRock is going around and buying billions of dollars of American single-family homes,” Vance added. “That’s a problem whether Blackrock is getting the money from the Chinese or somewhere else. The issue is you want Americans to be able to buy those homes and actually own a stake.”
Specifically, Vance told Breitbart News he would co-sponsor Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AK) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) legislation that bans China and China-linked firms from buying land anywhere in the U.S.
Vance said he would like to see the legislation expanded to include restrictions on how many acres of land one particular Wall Street firm, corporation, or billionaire can purchase.
On the other hand, Ryan voted to pass the Inflation Reduction Act without raising concerns about farming provisions that do nothing to protect American farmland from continuing incursions from China. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) proposed an amendment to ban China from buying American farmland, but the measure was blocked by Senate Democrats.
Analysis from 2019 shows that about half a million acres of farmland in Ohio are owned by foreign investors — primarily from China, Germany, and the Netherlands. Bill Gates alone now owns nearly 250,000 acres across 19 states, including nearly 9,000 acres in Ohio.
In 2021, Chinese investors were allowed to buy $6.1 billion worth of homes and land across the U.S. Most recently, a Chinese firm bought 300 acres of farmland in North Dakota that sits just 20 minutes from a U.S. Air Force Base.
The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) figure reveals that Chinese investors’ holdings of U.S. farmland skyrocketed from 13,720 acres in 2010 to 352,140 acres in 2020. Foreign investors now hold interest in more than 37 million acres of U.S. farmland — a region larger than the state of Iowa.
As Breitbart News reported this week, Vance spoke on the need for a new Congress to reverse federal immigration laws that allows multinational corporations to replace American professionals, often in high-paying STEM jobs, with cheaper foreign workers on the H-1B visa program.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
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