Chinese billionaires are buying American babies by the dozens — and shipping them overseas.
A 2025 Wall Street Journal investigation exposed how Chinese nationals are exploiting the U.S. surrogacy industry to mass-produce American-citizen children without ever setting foot in the country.
The leading case: Xu Bo, a video game mogul whose company said he has more than 100 children born through surrogacy in the U.S. The vast majority are boys.
For up to $200,000 per child, Chinese customers ship genetic material to America and get a baby — with U.S. citizenship — delivered back.
“The owner of one agency in California said he had helped fill an order for a Chinese parent seeking 100 children in the past few years, a request spread over several agencies.”
The CEO of an IVF company serving the Chinese market reported a surge in clients commissioning dozens or even hundreds of U.S.-born babies to forge what they call “unstoppable family dynasties.”
One agency owner said he once turned down a client who wanted more than 200 children at once.
But someone will say yes. The surrogacy industry has no binding standards to stop the most outrageous orders from being filled.
The United States is known worldwide for its unregulated IVF and surrogacy industries — willing to provide anyone with an American baby for the right price.
Sending large numbers of American babies to our geopolitical rivals is a national security threat.
A recent Supreme Court ruling on birthplace citizenship ensures that babies born to surrogates on U.S. soil — even those immediately shipped to China — are American citizens.
President Trump’s earlier executive order restricting birthplace citizenship did not close the surrogacy loophole, according to Emma Waters at The Federalist.
But the administration still has options.
Florida recently banned surrogacy contracts in which any party is a citizen or resident of China, Russia, Iran, or other “foreign countries of concern.”
Every other Republican-controlled state should follow.
Federally, the Trump administration should treat this as the human trafficking and national security threat that it is.
We put export controls on all sorts of things; we should add American infants to the list.
The government does not have to treat contracts for American babies as ordinary commercial transactions.
Making America Great Again means not selling American babies.
