Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has been advising President-elect Donald Trump’s national security team. At Turning Point USA’s AmFest conference in Phoenix, I sat down with him to discuss key challenges facing the incoming administration, such as how to address Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control of the Panama Canal.

“Who’s controlling this very important waterway? It’s the most strategic waterway for the United States of America on the planet,” Flynn says. “China is the dominant player right now between us and them.”

Lt. Gen. Flynn says the Chinese regime either owns or controls some component of 80 percent of the largest ports of our hemisphere. “And yet we have people in our government that go ‘Russia, Russia, Russia.’”

He argues that although America has always been a benevolent “nation of givers,” it must focus more energy on domestic policy, and that every citizen has a responsibility to engage in local action.

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.