A group that represents companies including Blackstone Inc., Steve Ross’s Related Cos. and Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital wants to roll back a law that went into effect in July that bans most Chinese investment in real estate in Florida. Other developers, including home builder Lennar Corp., also are pushing back on the statute. Lobbyists are pressing state lawmakers to pass legislation early next year to relax the restrictions, people involved in the process say.

DeSantis, whose bid for the Republican nomination for president is struggling, has made getting tough on China part of his campaign to woo conservative voters. The Foreign Countries of Concern law, he says, blocks agents of China’s communist regime from buying property near US military bases to use for spying.
 

Yet the law also bans most Chinese capital from being used to fund projects in Florida, choking off a relatively cheap source of financing for an engine of the state’s economy at a time of high interest rates and distress in commercial real estate. Firms with Chinese investors are barred from taking even small, non-controlling stakes in real estate deals under the statute. 

“The law is far-reaching, very, very confusing, and the unintended consequences would be very, very detrimental,” said John Fish, chairman of the Real Estate Roundtable, a lobbying group for dozens of America’s biggest real estate investors, including Citigroup Inc., Blackstone, Related, Starwood and Wells Fargo & Co. 

Wells Fargo declined to comment. Citigroup, Blackstone, Related and Starwood didn’t respond to requests for comment.