On Grand Bahama Island, some 55 miles off the continental United States, a Hong Kong-based company has spent approximately $3 billion developing and expanding a deep-water container port.

The Freeport Container Port’s Chinese and Bahamian backers expect to benefit from increased shipping through the region as a result of the expansion of the Panama Canal, not to mention an overall boost in trade between China and Latin America and the Caribbean.

But China’s financial ties to the site, which go back two decades, are receiving new scrutiny from U.S. analysts, particularly given what happened to Sri Lanka in 2017. When the South Asian nation lagged in debt payments for an ambitious Chinese-financed port project at Hambantota that fell woefully short of economic expectations, the Sri Lankan government signed-over the port in a 99-year lease. That allowed China to gain control of a vital piece of real estate that sits along a major shipping and naval sea-lane in the Indian Ocean, and a strategic spot to potentially project military power.

While the White House is focused on a trade war, Beijing has hardly skipped a beat with its global ambitions. Its investments and leadership in the Caribbean bring the Chinese presence to the U.S. doorstep in what could be another turf war in the growing rivalry between Beijing and Washington.

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, a well-known China hawk who also leads the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, says he is “very concerned” about China’s efforts to extend its influence into Latin American and the Caribbean, particularly as it concerns gaining access to strategic assets such as ports. The United States must do more to warn off its regional partners from doing business with Beijing, he says.