Arkansas orders Chinese company Syngenta to sell its properties in the state

Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders made her decision based on "the threat it poses to national security and farmers."

La gobernadora de Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Syngenta / Voz Media-Cordon Press

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October 18, 2023

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Arkansas has given the agrochemical company Syngenta, owned by the Chinese public company ChemChina, two years to sell the 160 acres of agricultural land it owns in the state.

The order was issued by Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who noted in a press conference that Syngenta's presence in the state shows "our enemies how to target them":

I'm announcing that Syngenta, a Chinese state-owned agrochemical company, must give up its land holdings in Arkansas. Syngenta owns 160 acres in northeast Arkansas, wich it uses primarily for seed research. The company that owns Syngenta, ChemChina, is also on the Department of Defense's list of Chinese military companies posing a clear threat to our state. Seeds are technology. Chinese state owned corporations filter that technology back to their homeland, stealing American research and telling our enemies how to target American farms.

Huckabee Sanders added that "since the Chinese government enacted a law in 2017 requiring Chinese citizens abroad to collaborate with their country's security officials on intelligence work with no questions asked," the fact that companies like Syngenta owning land is a "a clear threat to our national security and to our great farmers."

With this order, Arkansas becomes the first state to force a Chinese publicly owned company to sell its properties. In this case, their farmland on American soil.

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