New Federal Rule Implemented to Protect Military Bases from Foreign Land Purchases

The United States Treasury Department is enacting a new federal rule that aims to combat the rise in foreign entities strategically purchasing American land in close proximity to military bases.

According to Fox News, the new regulation will utilize a law passed in 2018 to expand the ability of the Treasury’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to analyze the consequences of foreign purchases of real estate, in order to possibly exert control over such transactions or asset transfers.

The Treasury Department’s move comes after several states, including Florida and North Dakota, had passed state-level laws to crack down on such transactions. Florida had passed three different laws reducing Chinese influence in the state, including forbidding the purchase of land in Florida by Chinese citizens who are “domiciled” in their home country. That law, however, is currently facing a legal challenge.

In North Dakota a land purchase near Grand Forks Air Force Base by a Chinese company seeking to build a corn mill was blocked after opposition by the state’s senators, John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who declared it to be a “significant threat to national security.”

Just last week, the White House blocked an attempted purchase of land near Francis E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming by a Chinese cryptocurrency firm.

The new federal rule lists 60 different military bases or adjacent properties that will be granted additional protections due to the new regulation. These bases include: Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia; Letterkenny Army Depot in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; Cold Bay Regional Radar Site and Naval Support Facility Ketchikan in Alaska; Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado; Camp Blaz in Dededo, Guam; and the Naval Logistics Support Annex in Okahumpka, Florida.