Threat Status for Monday, March 24, 2025. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will make several stops on his first overseas trip this week, including to U.S. treaty ally the Philippines, whose own defense secretary vowed Monday to stand firm against China’s push to control the South China Sea.
… U.S. negotiators are meeting separately with Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Saudi Arabia as the Trump administration’s push for a ceasefire enters a new phase.
… President Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland is growing more intense, with National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and second lady Usha Vance heading this week to the vast but sparsely populated island that is currently part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
… Ahead of Wednesday’s annual worldwide threats assessment hearing on Capitol Hill, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence says it is committed to telling Congress what it knows about foreign assassination plots against Mr. Trump.
… The Department of Homeland Security is revoking the “parole” status that former President Joseph R. Biden gave to more than 500,000 unauthorized migrants over the last three years.
… And here’s a look inside the Trump administration’s decision to award Boeing with the contract to develop the U.S. Air Force’s next generation F-47 fighter jets.
The Trump administration’s push for a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire entered a new phase Monday, with U.S. negotiators meeting with a Russian delegation in Riyadh, a day after holding talks in the Saudi capital with officials from Ukraine.
Special U.S. Envoy Steve Witkoff said in an appearance on Fox News Sunday that he anticipated “real progress” in the talks and is hopeful an initial ceasefire could be reached in the Black Sea, before the two sides “naturally gravitate into a full-on shooting ceasefire.”
While The Associated Press reports that Kyiv and Moscow agreed in principle to a limited ceasefire last week after Mr. Trump spoke separately with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the warring sides still have different views on the specific parameters of the potential pause in fighting.
Mr. Trump has made clear his administration is prepared to engage diplomatically with Tehran and is open to an agreement that would limit Iran’s nuclear program. The president has reportedly laid out that two-month negotiation window in a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But Mr. Trump has also directed blistering rhetoric toward Tehran, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the administration is deadly serious about military action if necessary. Iranian officials have expressed some openness to renewed diplomatic engagement on the nuclear issue, perhaps because of the hardball approach Mr. Trump is employing elsewhere with the restart of American airstrikes targeting one of Iran’s key proxy groups, Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
At the same time, Tehran is racing ahead with its uranium enrichment efforts and, according to most estimates, could build a nuclear weapon in days. Israel and the U.S. have vowed that they will not allow that to happen, setting the stage for potential direct military action by one or both countries if Mr. Trump’s diplomatic push is not reciprocated.
While many European leaders have tripped over themselves to make nice with Mr. Trump, Germany is taking a different approach. Friedrich Merz, who is almost assured of becoming the next chancellor of Europe’s biggest economic power, is ignoring conventional wisdom regarding relations with the U.S. president and his disruptive “American First” agenda for Europe.
Mr. Merz, whose conservative coalition claimed first place in Germany’s Feb. 23 federal elections, has embraced an unusually brusque tone toward Washington, asserting that his “absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”
“It is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe,” the chancellor-in-waiting said last month. The shift is all the more startling given that Mr. Merz, a longtime Atlanticist, had long been considered among Germany’s most pro-U.S. political figures. He ran on a pro-market, conservative-leaning agenda.
Mr. Hegseth is headed to Asia this week for meetings with U.S. allies and American troops on his first overseas visit as the Pentagon’s most senior civilian leader — a trip that comes amid rising regional tensions over China’s attempts to claim control of large portions of the South China Sea.
Threat Status’ own Bill Gertz is traveling with the defense secretary and will provide insider coverage, beginning with a first stop in Hawaii, where Mr. Hegseth will be briefed by Adm. Sam Paparo, commander of the Indo-Pacific Command. Other stops on the six-day trip include the U.S. island of Guam, a key military hub in the Pacific, and visits to the Philippines and Japan, according to Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.
The Philippines, a key U.S. treaty ally, has been locked in a tense military standoff with China over disputed reefs in the South China Sea. China’s navy and maritime militia have been harassing the Philippines’ efforts to resupply a grounded navy vessel on Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands.
Defense Department personnel could be subject to a lie detector test as part of a crackdown on “unauthorized disclosures of national security information,” according to a memo circulated by Mr. Hegseth’s chief of staff, Joe Kasper, requesting that the director for Defense Intelligence (Counterintelligence, Law Enforcement, and Security) assist in investigating unauthorized disclosures of sensitive and classified information throughout the department.
The March 21 memo provided no details about any alleged leaks, but said the “investigation will commence immediately and culminate in a report” to Mr. Hegseth. “The report will include a complete record of unauthorized disclosures within the Department of Defense and recommendations to improve such efforts,” wrote Mr. Kasper, who asserted any polygraph testing will be done “in accordance with applicable law and policy.”
Threat Status Pentagon Correspondent Mike Glenn reports that the memo circulated on the same day the Justice Department confirmed an investigation into the leak of “inaccurate, but nevertheless classified” intelligence information about Tren de Aragua, a transnational narcoterrorist and criminal organization from Venezuela.
• March 27 — Software-defined Warfare Blueprint, Atlantic Council
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