Threat Status for Tuesday, April 1, 2025. Share this daily newsletter with your friends, who can sign up here. Send tips to National Security Editor Guy Taylor.
Israeli forces claim to have killed a key Hezbollah figure and Iranian Quds Force collaborator with an airstrike near Beirut, while U.S. forces are increasing their own bombing of Iran-backed Houthi militant targets in Yemen.
… Regional sources tell Threat Status the dual U.S.-Israel actions are seen in Middle East capitals as a coordinated effort to ramp up pressure on Iran, as part of the Trump administration’s push to contain Tehran’s accelerating nuclear program.
… Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to embark on a charm offensive tour in April to try to strengthen ties with smaller nations across Southeast Asia amid regional anxiety over the Trump administration’s tariff policies.
… President Trump says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is trying to “renegotiate” an elusive deal that would give U.S. companies access to Ukrainian rare earth minerals.
… Sweden is giving an additional $1.6 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
… And America’s “Golden Dome” can’t wait, according to former Missile Defense Agency Director and retired Lt. Gen. Trey Obering, who says a constellation of up to 2,000 linked satellite interceptors could cost less than one piece of today’s system.
Stocks in auto export powerhouses Japan and South Korea plunged at the start of this week ahead of Mr. Trump’s stiff new tariffs on Asian imports that are set to go into effect Wednesday.
Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports from Seoul that the impending trade war may have spurred a surprising new economic alliance among China and two key U.S. security allies, Japan and South Korea. Mr. Trump and his supporters are calling Wednesday “Liberation Day” — a joke lost on Asia. Though most upcoming tariffs are set to be reciprocal, the toll falls heavily on automobiles: All those imported into the U.S. are due to suffer 25% duties.
Autos are a core competency for Japan, home to carmakers Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota, the global No. 1 carmaker by sales. It is a similar story in South Korea, home to the Hyundai marque, the global No. 3 seller, which covers Hyundai, Genesis and Kia.
The prospect of a return to all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah is rising. Israeli forces carried out an airstrike Tuesday morning against a building on the outskirts of the Lebanese capital, claiming the strike successfully killed Hassan Ali Badir, a Hezbollah and Iran Quds Force terrorist.
Tuesday’s strike came two days after Hezbollah’s current leader, Naim Kassem, made international headlines by warning that if Israel’s attacks on Lebanon continue and the Lebanese state does not act to stop them, the group will retaliate. Mr. Kassem’s comments came after Israel struck Beirut on Friday for the first time since a ceasefire ended the latest Israel-Hezbollah war in November. Friday’s strike was in retaliation for two rockets that had been fired Friday from Lebanon toward Israel.
While Hezbollah has denied firing the rockets, the resulting escalation has triggered fears of a new Israel-Hezbollah war. The developments come as the Trump administration has authorized U.S. military forces to increase their own bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.
Mr. Trump says Mr. Zelenskyy will have “big problems” if he tries to rework a deal that would provide rare earth minerals to the U.S. as payment for American support during the Russian invasion. Back-and-forth over the deal has been a source of contention between Mr. Trump and Kyiv amid Washington’s push for an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.
Mr. Trump campaigned last year on ending the Russian invasion, which began in February 2022 and has devastated Ukraine. Both sides have sustained massive casualties, and Mr. Trump wants credit for ending the fighting, saying the situation is locked in a bloody stalemate.
While he has been criticized for his tendency to compliment Russian President Vladimir Putin, on Sunday, Mr. Trump said he was “very angry” and “pissed off” at him after Mr. Putin questioned whether Mr. Zelenskyy should be replaced with a temporary United Nations-run government. “That’s not going in the right location,” Mr. Trump told NBC News. “I was pissed off about it. But if a deal isn’t made, and if I think it was Russia’s fault, I’m going to put secondary sanctions on Russia.”
The United States is “not in a cold war with China, and that’s precisely the problem,” writes Threat Status opinion contributor Miles Yu, who asserts that “unlike the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Party has no interest in a stable, rules-based standoff. The CCP is preparing for something far more dangerous: a hot war.
“China’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, is actively gearing up for a confrontation with the United States, whether over Taiwan, the South China Sea or elsewhere,” Mr. Yu writes. “The endgame is displacing American power and achieving global dominance.”
“Yes, the United States still commands immense deterrent power, but deterrence depends overwhelmingly on perception,” he writes. “The CCP has never internalized the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, which defined and restrained U.S.-Soviet confrontation during the Cold War.”
The recent decision to dismantle the Voice of America, Radio Free Asia and other government media organizations that were critical to President Reagan’s success in ending the Cold War with the Soviet Union, is “unfortunate,” writes Joseph R. DeTrani, a former high-level U.S. intelligence official and contributor to Threat Status.
“VOA, established in 1942, serves an audience of 360 million people each week in 50 languages. The Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, manages organizations that broadcast in 64 languages, reaching 427 million people,” Mr. DeTrani writes.
“Why would we cease communicating with the people in Iran with Radio Free Europe/Radio Farda that’s heard by over 6 million people each week?” he asks. “Why would we stop communicating with the people in all these countries, especially those in autocracies that censor the news and deny their people access to truthful news and analysis?”
• April 10-11 — Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats, Vanderbilt University
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