Senator Critical of CFIUS Decision Not to Review China Land Purchase
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., criticized the U.S. decision not to intervene in the purchase of North Dakota farm land by China-based Fufeng Group, saying the acquisition threatens U.S. national security. “The Chinese Communist Party should not be allowed to purchase land near our military bases. It is dangerous and dumb,” Rubio said in a Dec. 14 statement. “Congress mandated that [the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.] protect America’s national security and that should be its first priority, not making it easier for Chinese businesses, with ties to Beijing, to operate in the United States.”
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
CFIUS told Fufeng that its plans to acquire the land, which is near the Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, wasn’t a covered transaction. “CFIUS does not have jurisdiction” to review the deal, Andrew Fair, CFIUS acting staff chair, said in a letter to Fufeng, according to a Dec. 13 report from North Dakota's KNOX news radio. The Treasury Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.