Hostile foreign governments, especially the Chinese Communist Party, have stepped up efforts to buy land in Texas and around the nation. Experts have pointed to the security and economic threats posed by allowing those sales to take place. Others, like the Texas Farm Bureau, have opposed restricting property sales to such countries.
Yesterday, we asked readers if hostile foreign governments (such as China and Iran) or their agents should be allowed to purchase Texas land and mineral rights.
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Here is a sampling of the comments we received from our readers after they voted in the survey.
“I don’t understand why this is even a question. Do we really need to allow the CCP and others a base of operations here?” – Cindy Armstrong
“Texas and the Nation should ban any foreigners from buying or owning land, especially if these counties are hostile towards the US or these nations have a policy of not allowing foreigners to own land in their country.” – Landon Capozzi
“Who will decide if the sale will be approved? Is it yet another government agency funded with taxpayer dollars and subject to the inevitable corruption and lack of oversight?” – Tobie Hall
“No foreign government should own one square inch of Texas or of the USA. Hostile or not.” – Lauri Helms
“In my opinion, in order to buy American land you must first be an American.” – Anthony Fourman
“Texas Farm Bureau’s representative supported foreign purchases by our enemies. The same organization whose PAC donated only to incumbent nonconservative members of the Texas House in the Republican primaries. TFB is not a friend to conservatives.” – Randy Bean
“Absolutely NO Texas land should be sold to foreign entities!” – Cynthia Grubbs
“It is scary to think that our enemies could build the equivalent of fortresses within our country to attack our military bases and spy on our people.” – Charlene Kuprel
“Only Americans should be able to own Texas property.” – Gene Klutts
“I strongly support private property rights—until the land is purchased by an entity whose eventual plan is to kill us! It is ridiculous having a loophole that only requires written notice to the seller that the buyer is basically a terrorist organization.” – Beth Ann Smith
“All of my proposed land purchases in Iran and Red China have been blocked by their governments.” – David Bergthold
“The free market requires no government restrictions on the selling of land. If the government can block certain foreigners from buying land, then they can eventually ban whoever they want from buying land.” – Jim Baxa
“These countries, while not our enemies, are our economic and geopolitical adversaries. They do not allow Texans to own land in their countries; We must not allow them to own land in ours.” – Chris Breaux
“NO, NEVER EVER should land be allowed to be sold to ANY hostile countries!! It’s a threat to sovereignty and safety!” – Lisa Cryer
“People who sell land to hostile foreign governments and their agents remind me of the quote attributed to Vladimir Lenin, ‘The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.’ Making money is all well and good, but not to the extent it undermines our judgment about whom we are making money from!” – Erika Metzger
“Land is key to wealth and one of the means for production in an economy. Why allow foreign nations like China to steal bread from our breakfast table?” – James R Stewart
“If foreign nationals are able to buy land, what will stop them from creating ‘no go’ zones or claiming sovereignty over that land?” – Cathy Hess
“What would have happened had we let the Japanese and Nazis buy up land here during WWII? Yep, it would be stupid. No difference.” – Rick Goncher
“This is just what the elites want: To further dilute the sovereignty of the USA and remake America into ‘just another country’ that will fall in line with the global agenda. Dade Phelan and his ilk care nothing about our state or its people. They have been hired on to further a larger, more evil agenda.” – Deb Hillis
