Congress tightens foreign control of U.S. farms and agricultural land
H.R. 5760 — PASS Act of 2025 · Filed by Elise Stefanik (R-NY) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Oct 14, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill expands the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to include the Secretary of Agriculture and requires CFIUS to review and block foreign investments in U.S. agricultural businesses and farmland by entities from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—unless the President waives the ban on national security grounds. The Secretary of Agriculture must report every 180 days on foreign purchase risks to the agricultural sector.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is a mandatory CFIUS review and presidential prohibition on foreign acquisitions of U.S. agricultural assets by state-directed or state-domiciled entities from four named adversarial nations, with a national-security waiver option. This is a sectoral foreign-investment control, not a subsidy or deregulation.
What the text implies
- The definition of 'agriculture' incorporates the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 definition, which is broad and may capture food processing, distribution, and biotechnology firms beyond traditional farming—expanding CFIUS jurisdiction significantly.
- The 'covered foreign person' definition includes any entity 'registered or organized' in a prohibited country, potentially capturing U.S.-domiciled subsidiaries of foreign parents if the parent is state-directed, creating ambiguity about enforcement.
The full analysis lists 5 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
U.S. agricultural companies and landowners (reduced foreign competition for acquisitions); Domestic agricultural investors and venture capital (increased relative access to U.S. farm assets)