Threat Status for Monday, March 3, 2025. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
Expect tariffs to be a major focus when President Trump addresses Congress Tuesday night amid anticipation he is proceeding with 25% hikes on Canada and Mexico.
… National Security Adviser Mike Waltz says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blew a chance to advance peace talks during Friday’s Oval Office imbroglio — warning that the patience of the American taxpayer is “not unlimited.”
… Mr. Zelenskyy “either needs to resign or send somebody over that we can do business with, or he needs to change,” according to Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican.
… But H.R. McMaster, national security adviser during the first Trump administration, says Russian President Vladimir Putin “couldn’t be happier” to see the administration put “all of the pressure on Ukraine and no pressure on him.”
… Iran’s vice president, Mohammad Javad Zarif, resigned over the weekend in a government shake-up that has rattled the Iranian stock market. Mr. Zarif had been a key architect of the now-shredded 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
… Militants under the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, umbrella have agreed to a historic ceasefire with Turkey, although questions remain on whether the Kurd-dominated and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces will embrace it.
… A top U.S. Air Force commander has a warning for veterans about post-military employment with aviation companies tied to China.
… And Yinka Adegoke writes in Semafor that the Trump administration’s freeze on billions of dollars in foreign aid creates an opening for China to strengthen its presence in Africa, but that Beijing likely won’t replace Washington’s decades-old aid programs.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer says Europe is prepared to take the lead in the defense of Ukraine, including troops and planes, but will still need “strong backing” from the United States. He made the assertions Sunday in the presence of Mr. Zelenskyy, two days after the Ukrainian president’s Oval Office clash with Mr. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance raised questions about the future of U.S. aid to Ukraine and the Trump administration’s commitment to NATO.
More than a dozen European leaders pledged to keep their own economic and military aid flowing to Ukraine at a major summit in London over the weekend — underscoring renewed urgency around the war after Friday’s breakdown in discussions at the White House, where Mr. Zelenskyy challenged the suggestion that Mr. Putin can be trusted to abide by a Trump-negotiated peace deal.
Mr. Starmer sought to cool tensions between European leaders and the Trump administration. “Nobody wanted to see what happened last Friday, but I do not accept that the U.S. is an unreliable ally,” said the British prime minister, who announced a $2 billion export financing deal for Ukraine to purchase 5,000 air defense missiles manufactured in Belfast. “We are at a crossroads in history today, [but] this is not a moment for more talk,” Mr. Starmer said. “It’s time to step up and lead and to unite around a new plan for a just and enduring peace.”
No matter who was right or wrong in the sharp televised exchange and the collapse of an economic development and minerals deal that was supposed to be the centerpiece of Mr. Zelenskyy’s White House visit, some in Kyiv say the Ukrainian president did his country a disservice with his feisty approach to the new American leadership.
“This is a diplomatic catastrophe for Ukraine and there will be consequences for our armed forces, and for Ukraine in general,” said foreign policy expert and former adviser to the Ukrainian Minister of Defense Alexander Khara.
Special Threat Status Correspondent Guillaume Ptak reports from the Ukrainian capital that many others were incensed by Friday’s events and the perceived bullying of their president on live television. “Zelenskyy … was faced with the new reality of American idiocracy with Trump,” Ukrainian voice actor Bohdan-Hordiy Beniuk said bluntly in a series of messages on Telegram. “I’m very grateful to all people of the U.S. and I know that people still care about Ukraine. But [as for] the new administration … I wish courage and patience to all Americans.”
At the same time, Oleksiy Goncharenko, opposition member of parliament and frequent Zelenskyy critic, described the Oval Office meeting as “simply horrible,” but said Mr. Zelenskyy bore much of the blame for having behaved in an undiplomatic manner.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed an emergency declaration over the weekend to speed the delivery of about $4 billion worth of military assistance to Israel, claiming he was reversing the Biden administration’s partial arms embargo.
The Trump administration has approved a total of roughly $12 billion in military sales to Israel. In announcing the acceleration of a portion of the aid, Mr. Rubio said the Biden administration placed “baseless and politicized conditions on military assistance to Israel at a time when our close ally was fighting a war of survival on multiple fronts against Iran and terror proxies.”
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency said Friday that more than 35,500 MK-84 or BLU-117 bombs would be sold to Israel, along with 4,000 I-2000 Penetrator warheads and spare parts and accessories. The munitions are expected to be delivered next year. Mr. Rubio, who heads the agency, also signed off on the shipment of about 6,000 bombs and 1,500 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits to Israel in 2028. Officials said the U.S. will also sell Israel about $300 million of bulldozers and related equipment in 2027.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is pushing on the executives of eight major tech companies to provide Congress with information on foreign governments’ efforts to censor Americans online. The Ohio Republican issued subpoenas last week to Alphabet, Google’s parent company, as well as Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Rumble, TikTok and X seeking details on each platform’s efforts to comply with foreign laws.
“To develop effective legislation, including new laws protecting American speech from the effect of foreign governments’ censorship laws and judicial orders, the committee must first understand how and to what extent foreign laws, regulations and judicial orders have limited Americans’ access to lawful speech in the United States, as well as the extent to which the Biden-Harris administration aided or abetted these efforts,” Mr. Jordan wrote in the letters.
The demands for information come as the Judiciary Committee said U.S. companies are increasingly sounding alarms about foreign online content regulations that infringe on Americans’ civil liberties.
The U.S. Border Patrol apprehended just 8,326 illegal immigrants at the southern border in February. The numbers had been calming in the final months of the Biden administration. For the last half of 2024, agents caught 46,000 to 58,000 people monthly. With Mr. Trump taking office in January, the number dropped dramatically.
The Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan offers a deeper look at the situation. Mr. Trump claimed over the weekend that the “month of February, my first full month in Office, had the LOWEST number of Illegal Immigrants trying to enter our Country in History — BY FAR!”
“The Invasion of our Country is OVER,” the president declared on social media. February’s figure beats the previous low of roughly 11,000 illegal immigrants apprehended by Border Patrol agents in April 2017, near the start of Mr. Trump’s first term.
Todd Bensman, a border expert at the Center for Immigration Studies, says Mr. Trump’s success “disproved and debunked” the claims of immigrant rights groups that external factors caused the migrant surge.
• March 6 — Iran on the Brink: Resistance, Repression and Global Power Shifts, Hudson Institute
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