Republican Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance will release an ad later Thursday promising to prevent Chinese entities from purchasing U.S. farmland.
The new ad, obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller ahead of its release, alludes to congressional Democrats’ opposition to an Inflation Reduction Act amendment that would have prohibited Chinese government-affiliated firms from benefiting from money appropriated in the package. Chinese investors purchased $6.1 billion in U.S. land in 2021, and Chinese investors control 352,140 acres of American farmland at the end of 2020. (RELATED: Michigan Announces $715 Million Contract With Chinese Communist Party-Affiliated Company)
A May report from the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission found that the country may have “undue leverage over U.S. supply chains” if purchases continue.
“Why are food and groceries getting so expensive? One reason is we let communist China buy up American farmland, threatening our food supply and our national security,” Vance says in the ad, titled “Heritage.”
“Tim Ryan and Joe Biden make this worse.”
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Throughout his campaign, Vance has voiced opposition to American reliance on Chinese industry, and called for the U.S. government to support re-shoring manufacturing jobs. He expressed support for the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, which provides billions of dollars in subsidies to the semiconductor fabrication industry.
”As Ohioans face higher and higher food prices, Communist China is actively buying up swathes of American farmland while Tim Ryan and Joe Biden sit idly by. We cannot afford to allow our enemies to buy the heartland of America out from underneath our feet. As Senator, I’ll work with anyone to ensure we stop Communist China from buying U.S. farmland,” Vance said in a statement to the Daily Caller.
Ryan has also highlighted his opposition to American trade with China in campaign materials. His campaign recently released an ad supporting former President Donald Trump’s trade agenda, even as he publicly criticized it during Trump’s presidency. Ryan also called on the Biden administration to expand a trade blacklist to three Chinese solar energy companies that use slave labor.
Several polls have shown Vance and Ryan running within the margin of error in the race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman. The Ohio Senate seat will be key for control of the upper chamber. The state’s senior senator, Sherrod Brown, is the only Democrat elected Ohio-wide.