Secretary of State Marco Rubio says President Donald Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland and retake control of the Panama Canal is driven by legitimate national security interests stemming from growing concerns about Chinese activity and influence in the Arctic and in Latin America.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio insisted that President Donald Trump’s talk about buying Greenland “is not a joke.” “This is not about acquiring land for the purpose of acquiring land,” Rubio said in an interview on Thursday with Megyn Kelly on SiriusXM.

When Marco Rubio arrives in Latin America this weekend on his first foreign trip as Donald Trump's secretary of state, he'll find a region reeling from the new administration's shock-and-awe approach to diplomacy.