Opinion | Trump infuriates far-right influencers by touting Chinese land ownership
Trump infuriates far-right influencers by touting Chinese land ownership
Prominent conservatives were apoplectic after the president contradicted himself by vocally supporting Chinese ownership of American farmland.
Over the past few years, Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have circled the wagons in an effort to thwart what the party framed as an existential crisis: Chinese land ownership in the United States.
Laws passed in Texas and Florida explicitly banning the sale of some lands, particularly farmland, to Chinese investors have underscored the xenophobic tinge to the MAGA movement’s efforts to parlay its espoused national security concerns into a major political issue.
And with that in mind, Trump made things quite awkward for the MAGA faithful on Thursday when, during his excursion to China, which seems to have netted next-to-nothing in concessions, he defended Chinese farm ownership in the U.S. Trump made his comments to Fox News host Sean Hannity, and even repeated his previous claim that Chinese students should be allowed to study in the U.S. As my colleague Steve Benen explained last August when Trump made the claim, this assertion flies in the face of the Trump administration’s move to strip visas from Chinese students, as well as MAGA rhetoric from folks like Vice President JD Vance condemning foreign students studying at American universities.
The post below shows a clip of Trump condemning Chinese land ownership during the 2024 campaign and vowing to thwart it, followed by a clip of Trump telling Hannity this ownership is essential to U.S. farming.
Trump’s comments even fly in the face of an announcement the Agriculture Department made just last year, vowing to crack down on Chinese farm ownership in the U.S. The important context here is that the the president’s tariffs and war with Iran have devastated the U.S. farm industry, fueling backlash from that community toward his administration.
Prominent conservatives, now being forced to eat crow after supporting Trump when he was vowing to end Chinese farm ownership, sound disheartened, if not downright incensed, by the president’s comments.
Here are a few samples:
Trump says it’s insulting to tell China their students can’t go to our universities, imagine being an American student and receiving a rejection letter while 500,000 Chinese students get in!
And NO it is not ok for China to buy our farmland!!!
And no that’s not common sense!!! https://t.co/9qep1TUz8P— Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@FmrRepMTG) May 15, 2026
Again, for the umpteenth time, if you're going to make the argument that we must do stuff to "beat China" like tariffs and infinity data centers, people are going to doubt your sincerity when you turn around and promote selling them farmland, AI chips, and educating their elite. https://t.co/sq4jsxjf6q
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) May 15, 2026
Has China defeated our country? https://t.co/dD592DaPo5
— Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 15, 2026
Big mistake https://t.co/tcV1g4aIyP
— Winston Marshall (@MrWinMarshall) May 15, 2026
Trump ran for president vowing to “drain the swamp” of corruption, lower prices, abstain from launching new wars and, in a clear nod to his base, prevent China from buying up American farmland.
Each passing day seems to come with fresh evidence of his failures on these fronts. Failures that his rabid base of followers are forced to cope with.
Why Trump’s flip-flop on Iran’s uranium stockpile is a big deal
Trump says that Iran giving up its highly enriched uranium isn’t “necessary.” Wait, what?President Donald Trump has long presented himself as a genius negotiator who has mastered the “art of the deal.” But his latest comments about what he hopes to achieve in talks with Iran show how the most basic principles of deal-making elude him.
Fox News anchor Sean Hannity asked the president on Thursday about whether the U.S. was considering the options of seizing Iran’s estimated stockpile of 970 pounds of highly enriched uranium, which can be enriched slightly further to make nuclear bombs, by force or whether the U.S. would try to “entomb it” and make it impossible for Iran to access.
Trump first said that if the U.S. tried to seize the stockpile, it would take “a week and a half” to extract using a ground operation. That is likely an underestimate; nuclear experts say such an operation would take weeks, and that’s assuming it goes smoothly.
But what Trump said next was a surprise.
“I don’t think it’s necessary [to get the uranium], except from a public relations standpoint,” the president said. “I think it’s important for the fake news that we get it.”
He added, “I’m the one that said we’re going to get it, and we’re going to get it. We have our eye on it.”
In just a handful of words — “I don’t think it’s necessary” — Trump appeared to abandon a position that has been central to his entire premise for this disastrous war. And he instantly undermined his insistence on it as a key term of a peace deal with Iran.
That insistence — that Iran cannot secure nuclear weapons — was the overarching rationale for his war of aggression. Iran’s nearly 1,000 pound stockpile is enriched to 60% — just shy of the enrichment levels required to make nuclear weapons. Experts estimate that if Iran were to try to use the stockpile to make weapons, it could create some 10 to 12 nuclear bombs. (And Iran has a lot more uranium enriched at lower levels that could also potentially be used to make a weapon in the future.)
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Trump-Xi summit in China ends with no major breakthroughs, little progress on Taiwan and war in IranMay 15, 2026 / 11:24
Notably, U.S. intelligence assessments have estimated that the joint U.S.-Israeli bombardment campaign has failed to set back Iran’s nuclear capabilities. After Iran took control of the Strait of Hormuz and caused a global oil shock, Trump was forced to try to dismantle Iran’s nuclear capabilities at the negotiating table instead. In his negotiations and in conversations with the press about the negotiations, Trump has consistently identified the handover of Iran’s uranium stockpile as a core demand for a resolution to the war.
But now it appears that isn’t a prerequisite to end the war. When Trump told Hannity that “I don’t think it’s necessary” to get the enriched uranium, he suggested he has a soft commitment to it. And then, bafflingly, he attempted to pass it off as a “public relations” maneuver to satisfy the media. The takeaway is that Trump appears to be repackaging a key plank of his negotiation position as window dressing.
Trump’s surprise admission is exactly the kind of statement that Iranian negotiators will take note of, and use to bolster their confidence in negotiations. If they know Trump is ambivalent about — and could perhaps eventually become indifferent to — removal of Iran’s stockpile, that gives Iran more of an incentive to refuse to budge on that element of the deal, or demand a compromise more favorable to Tehran.
Of course Trump would never be in this mess if he had never torn up former President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal in the first place. As The New York Times noted, when Iran was cooperating with the uranium restrictions in the 2015 deal, “Iran’s weapon designers were left with too little nuclear fuel to build a single bomb.” Only after Trump pulled out of the deal in 2018 did Iran embark“on an enrichment spree” that moved them far closer to a bomb than before.
Trump exhibits a tendency to get bored by or change his mind about protracted international conflicts, and this time appears to be no different. As my colleague Hayes Brown has pointed out, at this point Trump would be lucky to get a deal even close to as strong as Obama’s was. Iran likely has a growing confidence in this as well — and wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that they’re negotiating with someone whom they can wait out until he caves.
The Boy Who Walked Into the Wedding. The Girl Who Stood Up for the Truth.
At first, everyone thought the boy was there to steal something.
He appeared at the entrance of the grand wedding hall like a shadow that had wandered into the wrong dream.
The ballroom glittered with crystal chandeliers, golden curtains, towers of white roses, and guests dressed in silk, satin, and diamonds. Waiters moved between tables carrying trays of champagne. A pianist played softly near the marble dance floor. Everything looked perfect.
And then he walked in.
A skinny teenage boy in dirty white sneakers, an oversized black jacket, and a gray hoodie stained with dust.
The laughter faded.
Heads turned.
Someone whispered, “Is he homeless?”
Another voice muttered, “Security.”
The boy ignored them all.
His dark hair fell over his forehead. His face was pale, smudged with dirt, but his eyes were strangely calm. He walked through the crowd as if he already knew exactly where he belonged.
And then he stopped.
Not in front of the bride.
Not in front of the groom.
But in front of the girl in the wheelchair.
Her name was Clara.
She was sixteen, dressed in a pale-blue gown that shimmered under the chandeliers. Her long brown hair was pinned back with a pearl clip, but her hands were folded tightly in her lap, as if she were trying to disappear.
All evening, people had smiled at her with pity.
They told her she looked beautiful.
They told her she was brave.
But no one asked her to dance.
The boy looked at her and said, “I’ll dance with you.”
The room went silent.
Clara’s eyes widened.
Her mother, standing near the head table, gasped. The groom frowned. The bride placed a hand over her mouth.
Clara looked down at her useless legs.
“I can’t dance,” she whispered.
The boy did not move.
“I can’t walk.”
A painful stillness spread across the ballroom.
The boy slowly held out his hand.
Then he said the words that made every guest stop breathing.
“I’ll make you walk.”
Someone laughed nervously.
Someone else said, “That’s cruel.”
A security guard stepped forward, but Clara raised one trembling hand.
“Wait,” she said.
Her voice was barely audible, but everyone heard it.
The boy crouched in front of her.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Eli.”
“Do you know me?”
His jaw tightened.
“I know enough.”
Clara frowned.
Something about his voice made her heart beat faster. It was not the voice of a stranger. It carried pain. It carried memory.
Her mother rushed toward them.
“Clara, don’t listen to him. He’s confused.”
Eli turned his head slowly.
“No,” he said. “I’m the only one here who isn’t.”
A murmur rippled through the guests.
Clara’s father, Richard Vale, stood from the front table. He was the owner of half the hotels in the city, a man whose smile appeared on charity posters and business magazines.
His voice was cold.
“Remove him.”
Two guards moved in.
Eli didn’t resist. He simply reached into his jacket and pulled out a small silver key.
The moment Clara saw it, her breath caught.
It was shaped like a tiny bird.
Her pendant.
The one she had lost on the night of the accident.
The night everything changed.
Clara’s voice shook.
“Where did you get that?”
Eli looked at her.
“You gave it to me.”
The ballroom erupted in whispers.
Clara’s mind flashed backward.
Rain on glass.
Headlights.
Her father yelling.
A boy screaming her name.
Then darkness.
For three years, Clara had believed the accident was her fault.
She had been told she ran into the road.
She had been told a strange boy tried to help her.
She had been told he disappeared.
But Eli was standing in front of her now.
Alive.
Broken.
Forgotten.
Her father’s face had gone pale.
“Clara,” he said carefully, “this boy is lying.”
Eli stood.
“No. You lied.”
The bride whispered, “What is happening?”
Eli pointed at Richard.
“That night, Clara didn’t run into the road. You did. You were drunk. You hit us both.”
A shocked gasp tore through the ballroom.
Clara’s mother covered her mouth.
Richard’s expression hardened.
“That is insane.”
Eli’s voice cracked, but he kept going.
“You paid people to erase everything. You told the hospital I was a runaway. You told Clara I was nobody.”
Clara stared at her father.
“Dad?”
Richard stepped toward her.
“Sweetheart, don’t let him upset you.”
But Clara was no longer looking at him.
She was looking at Eli.
At the scar near his eyebrow.
At the way his hand trembled.
At the silver bird key in his palm.
A memory struck her so hard she nearly cried out.
She remembered holding that same hand.
She remembered a boy pushing her away from headlights.
She remembered him whispering, “Don’t be scared. I’ve got you.”
Clara’s tears spilled over.
“You saved me.”
Eli swallowed.
“I tried.”
The room fell into a stunned silence.
Then Richard said, “Enough.”
He grabbed Clara’s wheelchair handles.
But Eli moved faster.
“Don’t touch her.”
Richard’s mask cracked.
“You filthy little street rat.”
The words echoed.
Every guest heard them.
Phones rose.
Cameras recorded.
Richard realized too late what he had done.
Clara’s hands tightened on the wheels of her chair.
For the first time in three years, she looked at her father not with dependence, but with horror.
“You knew him,” she whispered. “You knew who he was.”
Richard said nothing.
Eli stepped closer to Clara.
“Your legs were injured, yes. But not destroyed.”
Clara froze.
“What?”
Eli looked toward her mother.
“The doctors said she might walk again with treatment. But he stopped it.”
Clara’s mother began to sob.
Richard shouted, “Shut up!”
But it was too late.
Eli pulled a folded envelope from his jacket.
“I found the medical report. The real one.”
Clara’s mother stumbled backward.
Richard lunged for the envelope, but the groom stepped between them.
“Don’t,” he said.
Eli handed the envelope to Clara.
Her fingers trembled as she opened it.
The words blurred through tears.
Partial spinal trauma. High recovery potential. Intensive therapy recommended.
Clara’s lips parted.
High recovery potential.
Not impossible.
Not hopeless.
Her whole world tilted.
For three years, her father had told her walking again would never happen.
For three years, he had kept her weak, dependent, silent.
Why?
Then she looked across the room at the wedding decorations. At the cameras. At the reporters invited to capture Richard Vale’s “charity wedding donation” announcement later that night.
And she understood.
Her wheelchair had made him look noble.
Her suffering had become his brand.
Her pain had sold his kindness to the world.
Clara let out a broken sound.
“You used me.”
Richard’s face twisted.
“I protected you.”
“No,” she whispered. “You buried me alive.”
Eli knelt again.
His voice softened.
“Clara, I don’t know if you can walk far. I don’t know if it will hurt. But I know this.”
He held out his hand.
“You were never as broken as he made you believe.”
Every eye in the ballroom fixed on Clara.
Her heart pounded.
Her body shook.
Fear screamed inside her.
What if she fell?
What if Eli was wrong?
What if everyone watched her fail?
Then she looked at her father.
And suddenly, falling didn’t scare her as much as staying seated forever.
She placed her hand in Eli’s.
A gasp spread through the room.
“Clara, don’t,” Richard warned.
She ignored him.
Eli gently placed one arm around her shoulders.
“On three,” he whispered.
She closed her eyes.
“One.”
Her fingers dug into his sleeve.
“Two.”
The wheelchair creaked beneath her.
“Three.”
Clara pushed down with everything she had.
Pain shot through her legs.
Her knees buckled.
The crowd gasped.
Eli held her tighter.
“Look at me,” he said.
“I’m scared,” she cried.
“I know.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
Her legs trembled violently. Sweat gathered at her temples. Her breath came in sharp, broken bursts.
Then, slowly—
impossibly—
Clara stood.
For one second, no one moved.
No one spoke.
The entire ballroom seemed frozen inside that single miracle.
Then Clara took one tiny step.
Her mother screamed.
Not in fear.
In joy.
The guests erupted. Some cried. Some clapped. Some simply stared as if they had witnessed the world split open.
Clara collapsed into Eli’s arms, sobbing.
“I walked,” she whispered.
Eli’s eyes filled with tears.
“You did.”
Richard turned to leave.
But the doors opened.
Two police officers stepped in.
Behind them stood an older woman in a nurse’s uniform.
Clara recognized her immediately.
Nurse Helen.
The woman who had disappeared from the hospital after Clara’s accident.
Helen pointed at Richard.
“That’s him,” she said. “He paid me to switch the records.”
Richard’s face drained of color.
The officers moved toward him.
“This is absurd!” he shouted. “Do you know who I am?”
Eli answered quietly.
“A man who thought money could erase the truth.”
Richard was handcuffed in front of everyone.
The cameras captured it all.
The perfect wedding had become a public trial.
But the twist was not finished.
As Richard was dragged away, he suddenly laughed.
Cold.
Ugly.
Desperate.
“You think he came back for justice?” he spat at Clara. “Ask him why he really came.”
Clara turned to Eli.
Eli went still.
Richard smiled like a dying snake.
“Tell her, boy.”
The room grew quiet again.
Clara’s voice trembled.
“Eli?”
He looked down.
For the first time all night, he looked afraid.
“I didn’t just come because of the accident.”
Clara’s heart sank.
“What does that mean?”
Eli reached into his jacket one final time.
This time, he pulled out a faded hospital bracelet.
Clara stared at it.
Her name was on it.
But beside it was another name.
Twin: Male.
Clara stopped breathing.
Her mother let out a strangled cry.
“No,” Clara whispered.
Eli’s eyes shone with tears.
“I was in the car too,” he said. “Not as a stranger.”
Clara’s world went silent.
Eli’s voice broke.
“I was your brother.”
The ballroom disappeared.
The guests vanished.
There was only Eli, holding the bracelet between them.
Her twin brother.
The boy she had forgotten.
The boy her father had abandoned because two injured children would ruin the story.
One disabled daughter made Richard look tragic and heroic.
A homeless son proved he was a monster.
Clara covered her mouth.
Memories returned like lightning.
A little boy laughing beside her.
Two children sharing cake with their fingers.
A silver bird pendant split into two keys.
A voice in the dark saying, “Don’t be scared. I’ve got you.”
Clara reached toward Eli.
“You were my brother?”
Eli nodded, tears slipping down his dirty cheeks.
“I waited for you to remember me.”
Clara sobbed and pulled him into her arms.
This time, the room did not clap.
No one dared.
Because this was not a performance.
This was a family being resurrected from a grave built by lies.
Her mother fell to her knees beside them, crying harder than either of them had ever heard.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered to Eli. “He told me you died.”
Eli closed his eyes.
“I almost did.”
Clara held him tighter.
The reporters lowered their cameras.
Even the bride cried.
Outside, police lights flashed against the golden windows.
Inside, Clara stood once more—not perfectly, not steadily, but with Eli’s arm around her and her mother holding her other hand.
Together, they faced the crowd.
The girl who had been used as a symbol of weakness had just exposed the empire built on her silence.
The homeless boy who had been thrown away had returned as the only person brave enough to tell the truth.
And Richard Vale, the man everyone had admired, was remembered forever not for his wealth, his charity, or his grand wedding hall—
but for the night his daughter stood up, his son came home, and every lie he had buried finally learned how to walk.
