Secretary Kristi Noem Touts Passage Of Ban On Chinese Ownership Of South Dakota Farmland During Time As Governor

Forbes Breaking News

During a press briefing on Tuesday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem spoke about a bill passed during her time as Governor of South Dakota that banned China from purchasing farmland in the state.

Transcript

00:00well good morning and I am so blessed and pleased to be here with Brooke who

00:09is a dear friend of mine and our hearts and prayers still continue to go out with

00:13Texas and I'll be back down there in a few days to spend more time with them

00:16and to help them continue to heal and with recovery efforts the one thing I

00:21wanted to share with all of you today is that long before I had the honor of

00:25serving as President Trump's Homeland Security Secretary I was a farmer I was

00:29a rancher in fact I've worked on food policy for over 30 years and I

00:34recognize that food policy is national security policy a country who cannot

00:39feed itself cannot take care of itself and cannot provide for itself is not

00:44secure and that we have to be able to feed ourselves to make sure that no other

00:48country ever controls us and I've watched for decades as evil foreign governments

00:53including China have come into this country and they have stolen our

00:56intellectual property they've manipulated their currency they've treated us

00:59unfairly in trade deals they've come in and purchased up our processing companies

01:04stolen our genetics in fact I've worked in this building off and on on commissions

01:08and projects and laws and different statutes to ensure that China did not

01:14completely take control of our entire food supply chain recognizing that the

01:18United States of America would be in jeopardy if that ever were to happen I've

01:22watched them come in and establish a presence in stealing our chemicals in

01:27providing our fertilizer for us and so two years ago when I served as governor of

01:32South Dakota we passed a law in our state that said China and six other foreign

01:36evil governments would never own our farmland and I'm very proud to say that in

01:40South Dakota China does not own any of our land nor will they ever own any of our land

01:45so I served in Congress I worked hard to put in programs that would help manage risk for farmers

01:54I tell people all the time farmers are the biggest gamblers that I know they go to a

01:58bank oftentimes and they have to borrow money to buy land then they go back to the bank and

02:02they need machinery to work that land and so they borrow some more money to do that then they have to go

02:06back and get an operating note to purchase seed and fertilizer chemical potentially and they put it in

02:11the dirt and they hope that months later it'll rain the Sun will shine and that

02:15there'll be something there that they can pick up that they can sell and then that

02:18the markets that are beyond their control that there will be a price there that

02:21will help them cash flow so they can go back and do it all over again the next year they

02:25do that so that they can feed this country so that they could feed this world in

02:29fact growing up as a little girl and as a daughter of a farmer and a rancher I

02:34always felt like God loved farmers more I mean if you look at the Bible look at

02:37scripture and you look over and over again he talks about sowing and reaping and

02:41cattle on a thousand hills and your barns to overflowing and so I feel like there's

02:45a special blessing on farmers and the fact that we have a president and that we have a

02:50secretary of agriculture that recognizes the importance of food policy and what it

02:54means to this country's security is so wonderful it's so such a change from what

03:00the previous administration and how they prioritized our farmers and ranchers so

03:04now as a secretary now as a secretary of homeland security I have responsibilities

03:12when it comes to securing our homeland but many of those responsibilities have to

03:17do with securing our critical infrastructure we have the

03:20responsibility for 10 of our 16 critical infrastructures which means our

03:24electrical grid our water supply chain how we protect and run this country and

03:29what we do to make sure the people here are safe but not just the people the

03:33products and goods that come in and out of this country our customs and border

03:36protection units are the ones that all of our goods come into this country and

03:40leave this country on and their investigations and how they inspect our

03:44ag products are critically important to make sure that we aren't facing any

03:48kind of threats from what kind of products may come into this country or what

03:51kind of terrorist acts might happen from goods that other countries may wish to

03:55send to us that would harm our food supply we will continue to make sure that we

03:59have the systems in place the people in place the experts in place and the

04:03policies in place to make sure that this country always feeds itself and that we

04:08always have the ability to grow our own food and that we rely on no one else to

04:12feed the people of the United States of America because it is a national

04:15security issue when a country cannot provide for itself and we will never let any

04:20other country control our food supply or control our people because we will

04:24always be the great United States of America thank you

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