Donald Trump eyes ban to stop China threat to US farmers, food supply in swing-state stop

Donald Trump will address China’s potential threat to America’s farms and food supply during a Monday event in rural Pennsylvania, a host of the event told The Post.The 45th president has vowed to ban Chinese nationals from buying US farmland or owning telecommunications, energy, technology and medical supplies companies, if he retakes the White House.Trump will be joined by former Long Island Congressman and 2022 gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin and his former Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, at a family farm in rural Westmoreland County.“China’s Communist Party is threatening our food supply,” said Zeldin, who is affiliated with the Protecting America Initiative, which is hosting the event..Zeldin said the United States has lax reporting and enforcement of foreign-owned companies that purchase farms.“President Trump understood this threat when he was in the White House,” he said.“China wants us to be dependent on the supply chain.”US dependence on China was exposed during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.There was a dramatic shortage of personal protective equipment across the country, because most of the supply was manufactured in China — not in the US.Some nurses even resorted to wearing trash bags because of a shortage of PPE.

The cruel irony, Zeldin said, is that America was dependent on protective masks from China, the origin of the worst pandemic in a century that spread across the globe killing millions in America and globally.The Trump-Republican Party platform includes a plank calling for securing “strategic independence from China.”“Republicans will revoke China’s Most Favored Nation status, phase out imports of essential goods, and stop China from buying American Real Estate and Industries,” the Trump-GOP platform states.Zeldin said China’s investment or purchase of US assets would also trigger more espionage.Chinese-based firms must abide by compliance requirements that they turn over sensitive information...