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We don’t make enough of our products in America anymore. We’ve known this for decades, but it became more apparent during the early days of Covid. We had difficulty making medical masks because so many are made in China. We had difficulty with manufacturing therapeutics and medicines because so much of it is made in China.

America didn’t get in this situation overnight. The Trump years showed us that our so-called leaders had sold America down the river for decades. Our “leaders” had given China sweetheart trade deals and, through tax and regulatory policies, ran the cost of labor and production up so much that it forced jobs overseas.

We have our work cut out for us to fix these problems. But there’s another one that’s looming and is definitely one that we Texans need to be ready for this election season. China has been very busy buying real estate and land all across the country. Texas Congressman Chip Roy this past summer authored a bill that would prohibit the purchase of land by China. Congressman Roy did so after learning that a Chinese energy company bought over 130,000 acres of land near Laughlin Air Force base, just outside of Del Rio. And while his efforts are appreciated, we can do even more. This isn’t a real estate problem. This is a national security crisis.

I’m running for Texas General Land Office Commissioner. One of the jobs of the Texas Land Commissioner is to broker land deals on behalf of the state, deals that should benefit all Texans. The lack of transparency and accountability by career politicians remains a significant problem. Texans should know who is leasing our lands, and I want to know how our interests have been protected from foreign advisories over the last several years. We’ll never know unless someone is willing to roll up his sleeves and do the dirty work. If I’m elected, I will conduct a full forensic audit of all the land deals that are currently on the books at the Land office. I will disclose the findings of the audit and if any leases have ties to foreign governments, I’ll get us out of those deals. We can’t repeat the mistakes made in the past and sell our future to communist Chinese, Russia, or anyone else. We can’t allow China to buy Texas.

Land Commissioner Candidate Ben Armenta