By Will Doran for WRAL

State lawmakers are again seeking to ban foreign adversaries of the U.S., including China, from buying farmland anywhere in North Carolina — as well as to ban them from buying up any kind of land near military bases in the state.

The bans focus not just on national security concerns but on two of the state’s most important economic drivers: the military and agriculture. Fort Bragg, in Fayetteville, is the largest military base in the world, and a number of other military installations for the Army, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard also call the state home. Agriculture is North Carolina’s top industry, worth more than $100 billion a year.

Lawmakers held committee hearings on two different ideas for the bans Tuesday. In 2023, a similar bill passed the state House unanimously. But it was never allowed up for a vote in the state Senate.

Tuesday’s action in both chambers could be a sign that the idea may have more momentum this year, as the U.S. enters a trade war with China and other countries due to Republican President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

“It deters surveillance and espionage near bases like Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune, and it shields North Carolina agriculture from foreign manipulation or market control,” Sen. Bob Brinson, R-Craven, said Tuesday.

Brinson, the lead sponsor of the version of the bill in the Senate, acknowledged that real estate attorneys and others have concerns with the bill and how it would be implemented in practice — especially a provision requiring anyone who sells property, anywhere in the state, to verify the citizenship of the buyer before the sale can go through. He said he’s working with groups on tweaks to the bill.

But it’s not just lawyers concerned. The proposal could also face pushback from farmers and other landowners concerned about losing access to buyers.

The version of the bill in the state House would ban the sale of any piece of real estate — from houses to farms or strip malls — within 75 miles of a military installation. That would apply to most, if not all, of North Carolina.

A 75-mile circle around Fort Bragg alone ranges from just outside Charlotte through Greensboro, Durham, Raleigh, Wilson and southeastern North Carolina. Other U.S. military or N.C. National Guard bases along the coast and in places including Winston-Salem, Charlotte and Hendersonville would extend the bans to at least most, if not all, of the state.

Rep. Larry Potts, R-Davidson, said it seemed a bit extreme to him. “I’m going to support the bill, but it just seems like a long way away,” he said.

The Senate bill, on the other hand, has a smaller 25-mile radius in which it would ban property deals near military bases. But it’s also more strict, extending the bans not only to hostile foreign governments but also many of their citizens, and any companies deemed to be even indirectly influenced by them.

Sen. Lisa Grafstein, D-Wake, raised concerns that the bill would ban Chinese people from even renting property in places as far away from Fort Bragg as Holly Springs or Fuquay-Varina, which she represents. Wake County, and western Wake County in particular, is home to a large Asian population.

Brinson said Chinese, Russian or other citizens whose countries are on the list would still be allowed to buy or rent property if they have a green card.

But immigrants without permanent status — including people here illegally, or people who live in the country legally but on a temporary basis such as a student or work visa — would fall under the bans.

The bills up for debate Tuesday are House Bill 133 and Senate Bill 394.

Beyond having the same general goal, however, the two bills vary greatly in how they’d accomplish it.

• The House bill targets only the foreign governments, or companies they control, from purchasing the land.
• The Senate bill has those same rules but also expands the ban to anyone who’s a citizen of the countries in question, as well as companies that are indirectly influenced or controlled by the countries, among other rules.

The list of countries banned is also different in each bill.

• The Senate bill would target China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. The House bill would target whichever countries are on a list of foreign nations that U.S. companies are banned from selling weapons to. That currently would ban two dozen countries, including the four in the Senate bill, but also Cuba, Venezuela and others.

Despite some differences between the bills, however, the main goal of both is to target China. Similar bills have been introduced in a number of other states — as well as unsuccessfully in North Carolina — in recent years. The push began in 2022, after a Chinese company bought land for a corn factory in North Dakota that was viewed as suspiciously close to a highly sensitive Air Force base.

The last time lawmakers pushed for this bill in 2023, its lead sponsor told WRAL he wasn’t aware of the Chinese government or its government-backed companies actually owning any land in North Carolina that they would’ve been banned from buying under the proposed rules.

But lawmakers said they wanted to be prepared, to protect against it from ever happening.

WRAL reported in 2023 that Chinese-owned land accounted for only a small percentage of all the foreign-owned farmland in North Carolina [Editor’s note: the Chinese own nearly 50,000 North Carolina acres across 28 of the state’s 100 counties, according to the U.s. Department of Agriculture] as well as the U.S. as a whole. And most of that was due to the purchase of Smithfield Farms by a Chinese company in 2013 — but the way the 2023 House bill was structured, companies like Smithfield’s new owner WH Group would be exempt from the rules.

With the bills moving forward in 2025, Smithfield likely wouldn’t be impacted by the House version of the bill but could be impacted by the Senate bill. Brinson said all current landholdings would be grandfathered in if the bill becomes law. But when Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, D-Wake, asked if Smithfield would be banned from future land purchases, Brinson said that’s probably the case.

“I believe they’d be prohibited,” he said.

The preceding article originally appeared on April 7, 2025 at WRAL’s website and is made available here for educational purposes only. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Any views or opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Carolina Leadership Coalition.