Chinese naval forces join warships from Iran and Russia in a trilateral exercise that began Tuesday, according to authorities from all three nations. The joint naval exercises, which will go through March 15 in the Gulf of Oman near Iran’s port of Chabahar, follow similar drills that took place a year ago between the three increasingly aligned U.S. adversaries.

National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz reports that the warship activities will include simulated attacks on maritime targets as part of the annual “Security Belt 2025” exercises, according to a statement from the Chinese Defense Ministry.

Mr. Trump told reporters on Monday that he is “not at all” worried about the joint military exercises, according to a report by The Hill. “We’re stronger than all of them. We have more power than all of them,” said the president. Iranian Navy Commander Rear Adm. Shahram Irani shot back, asserting Mr. Trump’s perception of U.S. military power is based on a “delusion.”

Mr. Rubio and Mr. Waltz held a high-stakes round of talks in Saudi Arabia with a senior delegation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government on Tuesday.

The talks, held in the presence of Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and National Security Adviser Mosaad bin Mohammad al-Aiban, present a chance for the Zelenskyy government to win back support from the Trump administration following the messy Feb. 28 Oval Office meeting between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelenskyy over Kyiv’s willingness to pursue a ceasefire deal with Russia.

Threat Status is tracking whether the meeting in the Saudi city of Jeddah will prompt the Trump administration to restore halted U.S. military aid for Ukraine, as well as key intelligence-sharing. Ukrainian officials told The Associated Press they will propose a Ukraine-Russia ceasefire covering the Black Sea, a halt to long-range Russian missile strikes that have hit civilian targets in Ukraine, and the release of prisoners.

The U.S.-Ukraine meeting in Saudi Arabia comes amid an escalation of combat and aerial operations between Russian and Ukrainian military forces. Tuesday’s talks in the Saudi city of Jeddah opened hours after Russian air defenses shot down 337 Ukrainian drones over Russia but suffered some direct hits in the capital of Moscow that killed at least two people.

Russia is separately stepping up a concerted drive to push invading Ukrainian forces out of a slice of Russian border territory in the Kursk region. British military intelligence officials assess that Moscow seeks to reverse the Ukrainian incursion that has proved highly embarrassing for the Kremlin. The status of the territory could be critical to any potential ceasefire negotiations.

Moscow has been attempting to push Ukrainian forces from the 115-square-mile area of Kursk through slow, grinding advances since Kyiv’s forces first seized the ground in a surprise August 2024 operation. Russia even imported about 12,000 North Korean troops in October 2024 to assist in repelling the incursion.

The Chinese company Manus AI may be shaking the foundations of the global tech race with a new artificial intelligence system that the company claims is the “first general AI agent.”

Manus AI co-founder Yichao “Peak” Ji said in a video preview circulating in recent days that the new tool offers a window into artificial general intelligence, AGI, the term tech researchers use to describe a theoretical artificially intelligent system that can outperform human capabilities.

Global interest has extended to the West. Former National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence contributor Craig Smith says the tiny Manus team from Shenzhen, China, seems to be assembling a “revolutionary AI agent capable of independent thought and action.” 

Mr. Smith wrote in Forbes that the development is sending “shockwaves through the global AI community” and “reigniting a debate that had simmered for decades: What happens when artificial intelligence stops asking for permission and starts making its own decisions?”

The Trump administration says it will begin imposing 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports on Wednesday as part of a strategy to halt China’s practice of getting around the import taxes by exporting products into the United States via Mexico, Canada and other nations.

Mr. Trump wants Mexico, Canada and other trade partners to do more to deter Chinese exporters who ship goods to third-party countries, which they then repackage for export into the U.S. — a practice known as transshipment. The practice allows Chinese firms to duck U.S. tariffs on their goods, including steel and aluminum that flood the U.S. and cause American manufacturing plants to shutter.

The new tariffs are being implemented amid growing opposition to the president’s strategy. On Monday, a Wall Street sell-off entered a second week, and Democrats accused the president of damaging the economy. But some manufacturers say the free-trade agreements under which the U.S. has operated for the past three decades allowed China and other countries to gut critical American industries.

• March 7-13 — SXSW Conference, SXSW

• March 11 — The Future of Space Policy, International Institute for Strategic Studies

• March 11 — U.S.-India Relations in the Trump 2.0 Era: Challenges, Opportunities and the Road Ahead, Hudson Institute

• March 12 — The Role of the Panama Canal in Global Commerce, Atlantic Council

• March 13 — Collaborating for Resilience: Japanese and U.S. Industry Cooperation on MRO for USAF Systems, Center for Strategic & International Studies

• March 13 — Germany’s Election Aftermath: Implications for Foreign Policy, Wilson Center

• March 17-19 — 2025 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit, ARPA-E