Missouri moving to seize China-owned farmland, assets to collect landmark $24 billion judgment

Fresh off winning a landmark lawsuit, Missouri is moving quickly to seize Chinese-owned farmland and other assets in a bid to collect its landmark $24 billion civil judgment against Beijing for harm caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Attorney General Andrew Bailey told Just the News. 

“Missouri will start to identify and begin going to court to have court orders issued to seize those assets to make good on that judgment,” Bailey said on the "John Solomon Reports" podcast this week.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr declared that China’s communist government was liable for covering up the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and had engaged in “monopolistic actions” by hoarding protective equipment (PPE). He ruled Beijing should reimburse Missouri $24 billion for harm it inflicted on the state’s residents.

“China was misleading the world about the dangers and scope of the Covid-19 pandemic,” the judge ruled. “Missouri has demonstrated that the State has suffered significant harm in the form of lost net general tax revenue the State of Missouri would have collected but-for Defendants’ hoarding of PPE,” Limbaugh added.

You can read the ruling here.

China rejects ruling

Bailey’s predecessor as attorney general, now U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, had brought the legal action and Bailey saw it through to completion with a trial in January. China refused to cooperate or make an appearance in the case, making Limbaugh’s decision a default ruling. 

China has said it will not honor the judgment. “The so-called lawsuit has no basis in fact, law or international precedence,” Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu told The New York Times. “China does not and will not accept it. If China’s interests are harmed, we will firmly take reciprocal countermeasures according to international law.”

Missouri pursued the lawsuit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a law passed by Congress in 1976 and signed by then-President Gerald Ford that sets clear strictures on such litigation. The state prevailed in the federal appeals court and at trial.

Bailey told Just the News that the law creates mechanisms for identifying, seizing and selling assets of a foreign power to satisfy lawful judgments. Bailey, like many Republican, has also expressed concern about China’s purchase of U.S. farmland and said the solution he’ll pursue will try to secure multiple wins for his state.

"we're going to execute the judgment"

“Look, China had an ability and an opportunity to participate in litigation. They were we served them with notice of the litigation. They do business in the United States of America,” he explained. “They own an exorbitant amount of agricultural land in the United States of America, which they shouldn't be allowed to do, but they do, and so they're subject to laws of the United States of America, to include the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act." 

“But that's how little they think of these United States of America, that they couldn't even be bothered to show up to court after having been served notice of our lawsuit. And so we're going to execute the judgment, and we're going to make Missourians whole,” he added.

Several states have already banned or are considering banning foreign ownership of farmland from U.S. adversaries such as China, especially when that land is near sensitive military installations.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 40.8 million acres of U.S. farmland is owned by foreign citizens, companies or countries as of 2021. China owned about 384,000 acres of that.