Protecting American Agriculture from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2025
The Protecting American Agriculture from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2025 would amend the Defense Production Act of 1950 to give the Secretary of Agriculture a formal role on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) for certain foreign-involved deals. Specifically, the bill adds the Secretary of Agriculture as a CFIUS member when a covered transaction involves agricultural land, agricultural biotechnology, or the broader agriculture industry (including transportation, storage, and processing). It also creates a new process to scrutinize “reportable agricultural land transactions”—triggering CFIUS consideration after the Secretary of Agriculture reports a potential covered transaction, with the option to initiate a review or take other actions. The review authority would sunset for any given foreign country on the date that country is removed from the “foreign adversaries” list in the CFR. The bill defines covered countries as China, North Korea, Russia, and Iran, and ties the reporting requirement to the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978. In short, the bill widens national-security oversight of foreign investments in U.S. agriculture, especially land acquisitions, by requiring Agriculture Department input on certain deals and creating a formal review pathway for reportable agricultural land transactions.
Key Points
- 1Inclusion of the Secretary of Agriculture on CFIUS for certain agricultural deals.
- 2- The Secretary becomes a CFIUS member when a covered transaction involves agricultural land, agriculture biotechnology, or the agriculture industry (including transport, storage, and processing).
- 3New framework for reviewing reportable agricultural land transactions.
- 4- After the Secretary of Agriculture notifies CFIUS of a reportable agricultural land transaction, CFIUS must determine if it is a covered transaction and whether to initiate a review or take other action.
- 5Sunset provision tied to the foreign-adversary list.
- 6- The new requirements for reporting and review apply to foreign persons from covered countries until that country is removed from the list of foreign adversaries in the CFR; once removed, the sunset triggers.
- 7Definitions and scope for covered countries and reportable transactions.
- 8- Covered countries: China, North Korea, Russia, Iran.
- 9- Reportable agricultural land transaction: a transaction involving an acquisition of an interest in U.S. agricultural land by a foreign person from a covered country, where a report must be submitted under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA).
- 10Link to existing reporting framework (AFIDA).
- 11- The process relies on AFIDA reporting to identify and trigger CFIUS consideration for agricultural land transactions.