Related Articles
FIRST ON FOX: A bipartisan group in the House of Representatives is pushing to keep China’s influence over the U.S. food supply at a minimum.
New legislation being unveiled by Reps. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., would force the Department of Agriculture to hatch policy ideas to preemptively mitigate threats Beijing’s ruling Chinese Communist Party could pose to American agricultural supply chains, while at the same time rolling back legislative and regulatory barriers affecting domestic production.
“China hascaptured significant market share for agricultural inputs that are vital to our domestic food supply, ceding our top adversaryleverage and control,” Hinson explained to Fox News Digital. “Iowa farmers have told me firsthand that if China decides to shut off U.S. access to these inputs, food production could slow to a halt.”
MOST AMERICANS SUPPORT HOUSE PLAN TO BAN TIKTOK IF IT ISN’T SOLD, POLL FINDS
House lawmakers are eyeing ways to keep the Chinese Communist Party, led by Chinese President Xi Jinping, from seriously harming the U.S. food supply.
She argued the bill would “reshorethis critical supply chain to ensure Communist China does not have the power torestrict American food production.”
It would also mandate that the federal government stay on top of tracking the health of domestic agriculture supply chains and their vulnerability to China via annual assessments.
It comes as Congress also stares down China on the technology front, as the Senate considers a recently-passed House bill to force Beijing-backed company ByteDance to sever its ties with the popular social media app TikTok – or risk the platform being banned in U.S. app stores altogether.
MASSIVE PRO-DEMOCRAT TIKTOK ACCOUNT THAT SUPPORTED BIDEN IN 2020 HAS ‘SOURED’ ON PRESIDENT
Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, is leading the bill on the Republican side. (CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Like the TikTok bill, Hinson’s legislation is also backed by the top two lawmakers on the House select committee on China, Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill.
However, China hawks on both sides of the aisle in Congress, particularly from more rural parts of the country, have sounded the alarm on Beijing’s dominance over the global agricultural market for years.
Those concerns came to a head early last year when Chinese company Fufeng Group attempted to purchase land in North Dakota for a corn mill project – which spurred pushback both because of the implication of Chinese control of the food supply on U.S. soil and its proximity to a U.S. military base.
TAYLOR SWIFT’S SONGS REAPPEAR ON TIKTOK AHEAD OF POP STAR’S NEW ALBUM RELEASE DESPITE DISPUTE
Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., who is running for Senate, led the bill on the Democratic side. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, China has grown its dominance in other sectors critical to the U.S. food supply, such as production and trade of amino acids. Chinese manufacturers control up to 85% of the global market for essential amino acids used in livestock feed, according to the Social Science Research Network.
“These trends have created the potential for Chinese manipulation of the markets for these key inputs, which could result in reduced choice for producers and food security issues for U.S. consumers,” the July 2021 study warned.
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
