Trump’s Reversal on China Buying U.S. Farmland Angers MAGA Supporters

    https://time.com/article/2026/05/17/Chinese-farmland-trump-students/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_content=170526&fbclid=IwdGRjcAR3MFxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAwzNTA2ODU1MzE3MjgAAR74YKFKb-ownC5HWoAAiGUqTLoX2NgMnEqzIYX5-Xlw-U7FDpW0TTfHIQMRfw_aem_U7BvPnB85IpXxqt5v5vr4w

    Share.

    37 Comments

    1. From the article:

      During his 2024 campaign for the White House, then-candidate Donald Trump repeatedly pledged to block Chinese nationals and companies from purchasing U.S. farmland as part of his “America First” agenda, and shortly after winning a second term, his Administration moved aggressively to curtail Chinese student visas.

      Today, however, President Trump has reversed course on both issues, a development that threatens to isolate many in his base who view China as an existential threat to U.S. sovereignty. Trump’s pivot on the issues was drawn into focus following his visit to Beijing this week for a high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

      In an interview on Friday following the diplomatic visit, Trump defended his turnaround, while offering little explanation for his change of heart.

      “Frankly, I think that it’s good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture, and many of them want to stay here. I think it’s a good thing,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on May 15, defending his plan to approve some 500,000 visas for Chinese students.

      In the same interview, Trump defended the Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland, directly contradicting his own campaign speeches in which he vowed to stop Beijing from “buying up our farmland” and warned that foreign ownership threatened American independence.

      “Look, it’s not that I love it. You want to see farm prices drop. You want to see farmers lose a lot of money, just take that out of the market. But they’ve had a lot of land for a long time. Obama did nothing about it. They bought a lot during the Obama Administration, and he did nothing about it,” Trump said.

    2. onceinawhile222 on

      Angry but still in his corner. They have joined the cult and even economic pain is not enough to deprogram them from their beliefs.

    3. They should either hold Republican lawmakers responsible or STFU. They won’t.

    4. Brief_Night_9239 on

      MAGA supporters won’t abandon Trump. They have turned into a cult. You know like the one in Germany. Got a leader named Adolf…

    5. OhioValleyCat on

      I can hear some of the family farmers just saying about Trump policies, “Just give them time” and then before they know it, agribusiness and foreign interests have the corner on American agriculture and family farms will be out of business. However, they kept voting to support making themselves extinct because MAGA bogeymans trans, minorities, and immigrants.

    6. MajesticsEleven on

      I dont want to hear anything about Trump voter regret unless the main message is that they are going to abandon Trump and vote for a Democrat.

      All these stories are just noise. No matter how bad it gets for them you know they’ll just vote Republican.

    7. SoothingWafer on

      1. Vote for Trump

      or

      2. Get everything you want, but you have to hate minorities less.

      twobuttonsweatingmeme.gif

    8. EyeoftheEelpout on

      Trump essentially gave Xi permission to invade Taiwan.

      So much for spreading freedom over the globe.

    9. ChillingWithHerb on

      This is insane. Especially since we aren’t even allowed to own a lot of technology (NDAA) that is made from China but the government itself can own property here. This guy is selling all sorts of back doors into our national security. Tulsi Gabbard is a verified Russian spy. Like two days ago Trump’s own official said that the CIA raided her home then quickly recanted it. Then all the money Jared Kushner’s made in the Middle East and Trump has him negotiating peace with Iran when he’s as Zionist as you can get. They’re raping the US blind just like they did all those kids in the Epstein files. 65,000 Epstein files were confirmed to be erased in the last couple months.

    10. MagnumAddict on

      But never enough to retaliate in the one way that actually counts – their vote.

    11. I_heart_cancer on

      This article doesn’t mention anything about how JD Vance invested in AcreTrader through his venture firm Narya Capital, which was also an early backer of the platform. He never divested. And Senate disclosure forms only capture what he was required to report.

      The article treats Trump’s reversal as a political mystery. It isn’t. Trump’s own argument accidentally reveals the mechanism: blocking Chinese buyers would drive down land prices. He’s not wrong about that. But the people who need land prices to stay high aren’t farmers. Farmers need income. They need export markets, which the tariffs are destroying. The people who need high land valuations are investors holding stakes in farmland acquisition platforms like AcreTrader.

      So the full loop is: tariffs crush farm income and force distressed sales, feeding more inventory into the pipeline. The China reversal props up the underlying asset value. Farmers get squeezed from both directions. The investors collect from both directions.

      Trump stumbled into explaining exactly who benefits from his China reversal, without apparently realizing he was doing it.

    12. Sure they aren’t happy.

      But they will still vote for him.

      ‘WaY BeTtEr ThAn AnY dEmOcRaT!’

    13. nasorrty346tfrgser on

      Then they are not MAGA. the very definition of MAGA is to support whatever Trump said and done.

    14. Trump’s tariffs killed family farms and now the farmers have to sell to the Chinese to not go bankrupt. Disgusting ! Trump does not care. He’s gone bankrupt several times.

    15. He single-handedly sent US farms into default. Although, I remember him doing this during his first term. Too bad the farmers didn’t.

    16. Away-Coffee-9438 on

      Luckily, many States have their own prohibitions on foreign ownership of US farmland.

    17. > “Frankly, I think that it’s good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture, and many of them want to stay here. I think it’s a good thing,”

      now *this* is the trump quote that i want them to use in midterm advertising. his base would *love* to hear that he’s cool with non-white people now /s. or at least he said something that can be construed that way, because who are we kidding – trump is and always will be an unabashed racist.

    18. chickedychillin on

      I’ll say this. A dude who was crazy maga as fuck in my area seems to have changed his mind. He had SEVEN trump flags in his yard/on his fucking roof. He doesn’t have a single Trump flag up anymore and has replaced all of them with regular American flags. That’s been the biggest glimmer of hope I have seen. Not to mention I also hardly ever see any Trump stickers or flags or any kind of signs in my area anymore. So I’m seeing with my own eyes a much less rabid fanbase. 

    19. Dude is selling our country and our shit right in front of us and then telling us that it’s America first.

    20. ANTILAMER13 on

      We should not need to worry about MAGA supporters. The world has been held hostage by these asinine fools for too long.

    21. CatCatchingABird on

      > “Frankly, I think that it’s good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture, and many of them want to stay here. I think it’s a good thing,”

      Ok, so where did all of the immigrants go again?

    22. Not just MAGA, I’m an antifascist and secular humanist and I don’t like US land sold to foreign countries.

    23. SHUT_DOWN_EVERYTHING on

      Right… it angered them so much they went ahead and voted out Bill Cassidy exactly as he instructed.

      This sort of spam that has been persistent since 2015 needs to be banned. It’s like the laziest form of fake journalism. Find a couple of supporters who say something negative, make it seem like it’s more than it actually is. Get clicks and eyeballs from those desperate who believe that cult has turned on him.

    24. SneakyDeaky123 on

      My favorite thing about Trump is how he has always been in favor of whatever the last person he talked to just said.

      He’s like the worlds most senile, perverted, shit stained parrot

    25. roararoarus on

      So Trump starts a trade war with China. China then refuses to buy from American farmers. American farmers go out of business. China buys American farms.

      The art of the deal.