Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins stood at USDA headquarters last year and called Chinese-owned farmland a national security emergency.
Smithfield Foods – 87% owned by a Chinese Communist Party chairman – was in that room's crosshairs.
A federal disclosure form just revealed what they never wanted Congress to see.
Smithfield Foods Hid Chinese Ownership From Congress on Foreign Farmland Lobbying Disclosures
Federal lobbying law requires a straightforward disclosure on Line 19 of every quarterly report: does any foreign entity have an interest in the issues you're lobbying?
Smithfield's firm, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, checked "None" on that line across fifteen consecutive quarterly filings stretching back to early 2023.
Each of those reports covered lobbying on foreign ownership of American agricultural land.
Every one was filed while WH Group of Kowloon, Hong Kong – which owns 86.9% of Smithfield – held a direct financial stake in exactly that legislation.
The most recent filing, submitted July 20, 2026, covered $120,000 in lobbying directed at the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and the Department of the Treasury.
It also checked "None" on Line 19.
Then the Center for Responsible Food Business – a food industry watchdog – filed a complaint on August 3 with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House.
Fifteen days later, Greenberg Traurig quietly amended the report to finally name WH Group as the foreign entity with an interest in both the Farm Bill lobbying and the foreign land ownership fight.
Fourteen of the fifteen prior reports remain uncorrected.
"It should not take a watchdog group's complaint to compel a major global corporation to comply with federal disclosure laws about foreign lobbying interests," said Taylor Warren, president of the Center for Responsible Food Business.
Chinese Communist Party Lobbyists Targeted the Farm Bill Using Republican Connections
WH Group grew out of China's Shuanghui empire, and its chairman Wan Long is an identified Chinese Communist Party member who served in China's National People's Congress.
That organization is now running a Washington influence operation against the legislation designed to keep foreign adversaries off American soil.
The operation runs on Republican relationships.
Christopher DeLacy – formerly counsel to Republican Sen. John Warner – is on the farmland lobbying team.
Molly Ross brought eight years of Capitol Hill experience from Republican Sen. Susan Collins' office, where she covered agriculture, nutrition, and appropriations – the precise portfolio that controls this fight in Congress.
Joel Roberson's lobbying registration lists his prior role as floor coordinator and committee liaison for the House Republican Conference.
Those credentials were earned in offices funded by American taxpayers.
They are now rented out to Beijing.
Trump National Farm Security Plan Named Smithfield a Chinese Threat
Agriculture Secretary Rollins stood at USDA headquarters in July 2025 alongside five Cabinet officials, Republican governors, and members of Congress to announce the National Farm Security Action Plan.
She put Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork producer, on the list of Chinese-controlled companies the administration intended to pursue.
"Farms are weapons that can be turned against us," Rollins said.
Peter Navarro said WH Group's acquisition of Smithfield had long troubled him, noting the company now controls roughly an eighth of the world's pork supply.
Sen. Mike Rounds, sponsor of S.903 – the Protecting American Agriculture from Foreign Adversaries Act – has warned that China is deliberately seeking positions near sensitive American military installations.
While the administration was publicly naming Smithfield a national security problem, Smithfield's Washington operation was working to kill the bill that would have stripped its Chinese owner of that leverage.
And for three and a half years, every quarterly disclosure told Congress that no foreign entity had any interest in any of it.
Smithfield Lobbying Disclosure Violations Span Three Years of Farm Bill Fights
Fifteen consecutive identical errors is not a filing mistake.
The Lobbying Disclosure Act exists because Congress recognized that undisclosed foreign influence over legislation is a threat to the country's sovereignty – not a clerical nuisance.
Greenberg Traurig checked "None" on Line 19 in the first quarter of 2023 and kept checking it every quarter that followed, right through the months when the Trump administration was publicly calling Smithfield a Chinese-controlled threat to American food security.
Taylor Warren put it directly: Smithfield's years-long omission followed by its sudden correction "suggest it never intended to admit that its lobbyists really represent China."
The question now is whether the amended filing closes this matter or opens a larger one.
Fourteen uncorrected quarterly reports are still sitting in the congressional disclosure database, each one telling the Senate and the House that the world's largest pork company – controlled by a Chinese Communist Party member – had no foreign stake in shaping American farmland law.
Congress should be asking who else is checking the wrong box.
Sources:
- Kevin Killough, "Smithfield Foods's lobbyist admits Chinese owner's interest in Farm Bill lobbying," Just the News, September 4, 2026.
- "After CRFB Complaint, Smithfield's Lobbyist Admits Chinese Owner's Interest in Farm Bill Lobbying," PR Newswire, September 3, 2026.
- Natalie G. Winters, "Meet The Republican Lobbyists Getting Paid To Help China Buy American Farmland," September 2026.
- "Trump Administration Unveils Plan to Ban Chinese Ownership of US Farmland and Ag," Western Ag Network, July 9, 2025.
- "New U.S. farm security plan to challenge Chinese ownership of major ag businesses," National Hog Farmer, July 8, 2025.
