PASS Act (Promoting Agriculture Safeguards and Security)
Current understanding
The PASS Act would prohibit persons linked to China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea from purchasing or leasing U.S. agricultural land located near sensitive military installations or other national-security sites, and from acquiring control of U.S. agricultural companies. It would also formally add the Secretary of Agriculture to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) for agriculture-related transactions, giving USDA a standing seat in national-security reviews of ag-sector deals. Status: introduced legislation building on existing CFIUS and AFIDA-related foreign-investment controls rather than creating a new mechanism.
Evidence log
- 2025-10-14 — PASS Act of 2025: cross-connection with protecting-americas-agricultural-land-foreign-harm-act: Both impose categorical bans on adversary-nation (CN/RU/IR/KP) acquisition of U.S. agricultural land, differing on scope of covered entities and waiver mechanisms. (novelty: 3)
- 2025-03-28 — FARMLAND Act of 2025: cross-connection with farmland-act-2025: Both add USDA leadership to CFIUS and target foreign agricultural investment through the CFIUS framework. (novelty: 3)
- 2025-03-06 — PASS Act: cross-connection with farm-act-cfius-agriculture: Both proposals add the Secretary of Agriculture to CFIUS for agriculture-related transactions; the PASS Act layers adversary-specific prohibitions on top of the FARM Act’s structural CFIUS reform. (novelty: 3)