Trump's Greenland push is about the growing threat from China and the media isn't getting the message.

It's about China, stupid.

President-elect Trump's response to an “I got you” question made headlines for his refusal to rule out military intervention in the Panama Canal, but many in the media are failing to get the intended message.

Trump and his new national security team warn Chinese President Xi Jinping.

They are essentially telling him and the rest of the world that we see what Beijing aims to achieve economically and militarily in the Western Hemisphere.

Canada, Greenland, the Panama Canal and even the Drake Passage at the end of the world are all interconnected. China is their common denominator.

This is not about ancient American military conquests. Rather, it is simply a matter of telling Xi not to intervene! It's the 21st^st century-old version of Monroe Doctrine and this comes at a time when China is increasingly asserting itself on the world stage.

Beijing is working to economically and militarily strangle U.S. maritime and naval routes by controlling key chokepoints and naval transit routes.

Trump's second term was always going to be more China-centric. Xis rapidly expanding The People's Liberation Army will be one of the main determining factors when his administration rewrites the national security strategy, as prescribed in the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.

As usual, Trump pleads his case against Beijing in essentially economic terms. However, his argument is primarily driven by China and its dual approach to building a global military projection force.

The key word is twofold. China is $1 trillion and still growing Belt and Road Initiative is of economical construction. However, it is also an alarming modern-day Trojan horse that is building the infrastructure that will house an increasingly powerful global Chinese military presence.

We saw proof of this in the game. China's economic investments in Africa led to the opening in 2018 of its first military base abroad in Djibouti and only a few kilometers from Camp Lemonnier, the American base in the Horn of Africa.

Initially, it was for Beijing to gain access to raw materials, then to secure maritime routes to mainland China by securing deep-sea seaports, building artificial islands and deploying military forces to secure them.

It is now also about Xi threatening the West's vital trade routes in the Gulf of Aden and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait.

Clever or not, Trump's warnings about the Panama Canal are timely. China aspires to an economy control the channel. The Landbridge Group, a Chinese company, alongside Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings, now operates ports at both ends of the canal.

Greenland may appear to most Americans as an isolated concern; Yet Danish territory will play an increasingly vital role in American national security in the decades to come.

Global warming paves the way for the 3,500 miles Northern Sea Route which extends from the Bering Sea separating Alaska and Siberia to the Barents and Kara Seas north of Murmansk, Russia.

Aside from NORAD, the United States is currently ill-prepared to defend against any Russian and Chinese militarization of the Arctic. For example, the U.S. Navy only has two icebreakers to cover the concurrent Northwest Passage to Canada.

Currently, the threat is largely Russian. But, in 2018, China declared itself a near-Arctic state and launched the Polar Silk Road, an Arctic version of Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative in partnership with Moscow.

Left tacit for the moment by Trump, China's other ambition is located at the tip of South America, in Chile. Retired U.S. Army Gen. Laura Richardson, former SOUTHCOM commander, warned Congress in March 2023: Beijing is trying to secure rights to build dual-use maritime facilities near the southern port city of Ushuaia.

If this happens, China could militarily dominate the Strait of Magellan, the Drake Passage and Antarctica in the not-so-distant future. It would also mean that Beijing could strategically control or block U.S. maritime and naval transit through the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans at will.

You only need to look at Taipei and Manila to know that Xi is willing to play this card. The PLA frequently encircles Taiwan by sea and air to practice cutting off its maritime trade routes, and the PLA Navy regularly harasses Philippine ships.

China is challenging us on our own turf. Are we determined, as a nation, to face it?