Foreign Investment in Land and National Security

National security and foreign investment

The question of national security and its relationship with investment has gained momentum and is an open debate that includes issues such as national defense, energy security, the protection of technologies, and the ownership of land or of resources considered vital to national sovereignty, such as food. National security is also taken into consideration when the companies making the investments belong to or are linked to a foreign government that could have a strategic interest in controlling the development of a given activity or service in another country. On other occasions, national security is taken into account in situations where the stability of the state is at risk due to macroeconomic imbalances and the state of necessity is invoked.

The Argentine debate: between the Land Law and deregulatory pressure

Law 26,737 on the Protection of National Domain over the Ownership, Possession or Tenure of Rural Land (Ley 26.737 de Protección al Dominio Nacional sobre la Propiedad, Posesión o Tenencia de las Tierras Rurales), enacted in 2011 and known as the Land Law, set precise limits: foreigners may not own more than 15 percent of the country's total rural land, with an additional cap of 30 percent for persons of the same nationality. Near bodies of water, the limits become even more restrictive. The government of Javier Milei issued Emergency Decree (DNU) 70/2023, whose article 154 repealed Law 26,737, and then, after that measure failed, promoted initiatives between 2023 and 2025 aimed at relaxing those limits within the framework of the Large Investment Incentive Regime (Régimen de Incentivo a las Grandes Inversiones, RIGI), and even submitted a new bill similar to the decree, arguing that attracting foreign capital required eliminating restrictions on productive assets. This measure met with parliamentary and social resistance; full liberalization of the sector did not succeed in the National Congress. However, the recent ruling of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation lifted the injunction that had suspended the repeal of the Land Law included in Emergency Decree (DNU) 70/2023 and consequently enabled the unlimited sale of land to foreigners. Criticism of this measure is widespread. But beyond the current situation, should the Land Law remain in force, there are concerns about the effective implementation of the control regime, since the mechanisms for verifying compliance with the legal limits suffer from structural weaknesses. The National Rural Land Registry (Registro Nacional de Tierras Rurales), which reports to the National Ministry of Justice, does not always have the institutional resources needed to audit the complex corporate structures used to circumvent the nominal restrictions. Indeed, the legal sophistication of foreign investment vehicles, which can channel capital through companies incorporated in third countries, renders insufficient any regulation that operates solely on the nationality of the formal owner. Comparative experience—including the evolution of CFIUS itself in the United States—indicates that effective control requires tracing the chain of ultimate beneficial owners, cross-checking data with economic intelligence records and having specialized technical capacity to analyze transnational corporate structures.

Land as a strategic asset: the new global regulatory cycle

To get an idea of the importance this debate has internationally, let us look at what is happening in the US. On July 8, 2025, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that formalized the incorporation of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a member of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). This is a highly significant precedent for the global regulation of foreign investment in agricultural land. The Trump administration's decision to institutionally anchor control of productive land in the national security architecture is, in itself, a foreign policy statement: land has ceased to be a merely economic asset and has become a pillar of sovereignty. This move follows a trend regarding the acquisition of agricultural land in US territory by investors with ties to governments considered strategic adversaries, particularly China. The debate, which for years was handled on the margins of national security analysis, has escalated to the center of the legislative and executive agenda, and the Secretary of Agriculture now participates in the review of transactions involving agricultural land, agricultural biotechnology or the food transportation, storage and processing industry.

CFIUS and agriculture: an expansion of the national security perimeter

The MOU sets out specific commitments for the Department of Agriculture to join the committee (CFIUS) that oversees transactions involving assets or interests in the agricultural sector, such as strengthening the exchange of information on relevant foreign investment in agricultural land, and implementing the mandates provided for in the 2024 legislation. According to the CFIUS Annual Report to the US Congress for fiscal year 2025, the Committee made progress in 2025 on multiple fronts: the launch of the Known Investor Pilot Program to streamline the review of investors from allied countries, the creation of an Office of Investigations and Analysis with in-house technical capacity, and coordination with the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to incorporate investment security commitments into reciprocal trade agreements, for the first time in the agency's history. This was the case with the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade and Investment between the United States and Argentina, which provides:

"Article 4.2: Export controls, sanctions, investment security and related matters...

3. Argentina shall cooperate with the United States on matters related to investment security, including exploring the establishment of a mechanism to screen inbound investment on the basis of national security risks, in accordance with widely accepted international best practices.

4. If the United States determines that Argentina is cooperating to address shared national and economic security concerns, it may take such cooperation into account when applying its laws and regulations relating to export controls, investment screening and other measures."

The geopolitical dimension: food security as national security

The importance of agricultural land as a national security asset is not unique to Washington. In May 2026, the European Union moved forward with directives for the screening of foreign investment in sensitive sectors that explicitly include food production. As stated in REGULATION (EU) 2026/1386 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL:

"Article 19 - Determination of the likely negative effect on security or public order. 1. In assessing whether a foreign investment is likely to negatively affect security or public order, for the purposes of adopting a screening decision, providing comments or issuing an opinion, Member States and the Commission shall take into account, in particular, its potential effects on:...

(i) the protection of food security, including agriculture, where the Union target owns or operates more than 10 000 hectares of agricultural land;..."

Since 2015, Australia has maintained a mandatory review threshold for acquisitions of agricultural land by foreign investors of just 15 million Australian dollars, significantly lower than the general threshold applicable to other industries. Japan amended its legislation in 2025, and from 2026 the country requires disclosure of the nationality of buyers and legal representatives in real estate transactions, amid growing interest in the Japanese market and national security concerns. What emerges from this comparative overview is a systemic trend: states are redefining control over productive land as an instrument of foreign and defense policy, against a backdrop of disruptions in global food value chains that the 2020 pandemic brought to light and that the armed conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East prolonged. The FAO estimated that in 2022 and 2023 more than 733 million people faced severe food insecurity, a figure that serves as a political argument to justify stricter regulations on who controls the assets that produce food.

The lack of an investment policy that takes national security into account and the contradictions with the agreements signed

While for the US investment in land is a matter of national security, and therefore, under the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade and Investment, a matter on which Argentina should cooperate, our country is dismantling its controls, which is a major contradiction and evidences the lack of an investment development policy that takes national security into account.

It is essential to establish a clear policy on land ownership. Land is an indispensable asset for the state in times of geopolitical turbulence and tighter controls on investment around the world. The lack of prompt regulation on this matter affects national security and leaves the door open to international financial speculators who, in the face of possible future expropriations, may take advantage of the benefits granted by the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Treaties and bring their claims before ICSID, the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, as Argentina has suffered in the recent past.

Sources

1. USDA / US Department of the Treasury — Memorandum of Understanding between the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Agriculture (July 8, 2025)
2. CFIUS — Annual Report to Congress, Calendar Year 2025 (2025)
3. ICP Web / CFDT — Land Law: Informational Document for Citizens (August 3, 2026)