server does not connect to the right port for my DB when it makes a request - express

Question

I am running a node/express react app, with mongoDB as my database, its being served on a EC2 instance AWS. I am using MobaXterm to ssh into my server. The problem I am encountering, when I go to signUp/Login, and it makes the http request, its not sending the Request to port:8081 where my DB is. My front end is being hosted on port:3000, as seen here url with port.
The home page of my app show display public content, but instead it shows this should display my content, instead displays html syntax. I am using PM2 to run both the front end and back end , they are 2 separate instances. Here is my ecosystem.config.js file that gets called to start the front end
module.exports = {
apps: [
{
name: 'frontend',
script: 'npx',
args: 'serve -s build -l 3000 -n',
interpreter: 'none',
env: {
NODE_ENV: 'production',
},
},
],
}
Here is my http-common.js file that sets up axios
import axios from 'axios';
const apiUrl = process.env.NODE_ENV === 'production' ? process.env.REACT_APP_PRODUCTION : process.env.REACT_APP_DEV;
export default axios.create({
baseURL: apiUrl,
headers: {
"Content-type": "application/json"
}
});
Here is where my public content on my home page is called
import http from '../http-common';
import authHeader from './auth-header';
class UserService {
getPublicContent() {
return http.get('api/test/all');
};
getUserBoard() {
return http.get('api/test/user', { headers: authHeader() });
};
getModeratorBoard() {
return http.post('api/test/mod', { headers: authHeader() });
};
getAdminBoard() {
return http.put('api/test/admin', { headers: authHeader() });
};
}
export default UserService;
and my .env.production file
REACT_APP_PRODUCTION=http://EC2-INSTANCE-URL-NOT-REAL:8081/
And you can see here that instead of the REQUEST using port:8081 it sends the request to port:3000
GET request to wrong port
**** Also my ports are open on 8081 , on the security group for the EC2 instance ***
Im new to the backend so im not sure what to do , or how to continue, I really want to have my project CI/CD working before I try to make any more progress.