Commercial mining has little to do with Denmark withdrawing from treaties in favor of military partnership with our adversaries. And your link is about Greenland expelling a Chinese mining firm, so it seems like things were going reasonably well for the US on that front too.

That the firm was allowed in and then needed to be expelled is the issue. How many operators are still there but undetected, or so embedded that they cannot be easily expelled?

So are you saying that the US should make military threats against any ally where a Chinese-controlled firm sets up a mine, even temporarily? Or where it might have happened without being detected?

All Chinese or Russian firms should be considered, at least at first glance, as military or intelligence apparatus.

Yeah but I'm wondering whether we should make it that easy for China and Russia to ruin our relationships with our allies.

I think that is more to do with the current administrations "style" of state-craft (basically the "big stick" method)

> he current administrations "style" of state-craft (basically the "big stick" method)

Trump is the antithesis to "speak[ing] softly and carry[ing] a big stick" [1]. He's constantly blustering and retreating from his own lines.

The last big-stick President we had was probably Obama, though Bush and H. W. strike closer to the mark.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_stick_ideology