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Just five days before she would meet with Speaker KEVIN McCARTHY, Taiwan’s president delivered a clear message for the three U.S. senators seated in front of her: Help get my government’s forces ready.

Taiwan needs “training, training, training,” Sen. JONI ERNST (R-Iowa), one of the lawmakers in the March 31 meeting at the Lotte New York Palace hotel with President TSAI ING-WEN, said of her main takeaway from Tsai’s private comments. “She said we really need the United States to continue working with her military to make sure they are prepared in the event of anything.”

Ernst, joined in the hour-long session by Sens. DAN SULLIVAN (R-Alaska) and MARK KELLY (D-Ariz.), noted that could come in the form of U.S. forces directly training their Taiwanese counterparts on the democratic island, Taiwanese troops exercising in the United States or a third country, or the use of simulators. Taiwan’s reserve forces also need time to familiarize themselves with new equipment, Tsai said, per Ernst, so that everyone defending Taiwan is proficient with advanced technologies and weapons.

Whatever shape the training takes, the U.S.-Taiwan partnership needs to be enhanced quickly, Ernst argued. “They don’t have a lot of time to get where they need to be in order to combat China, or at least trying to deter China.”

Bolstering Taiwan’s defenses also includes clearing the $19 billion backlog in weapons transfers — which Tsai specifically cited in her meeting with the lawmakers. Weapons still to be delivered include Harpoons, Javelin, Stingers, HIMARS and F-16 fighter jets.

“There are other countries that are also in the queue waiting for military equipment to transfer to them,” but it would be prudent to “prioritize the hotspot areas that need the equipment, maybe, sooner,” Ernst told NatSec Daily. “The sooner we can get these systems into Taiwan and make sure their military is trained and proficient, the better off not only our partner, Taiwan, will be, but then the rest of the Indo-Pacom area, as well.”

The Biden administration has blamed limited production capacities for the delay, a problem exacerbated by America’s security assistance to Ukraine. “A lot of that backlog is due to production lines that have not been you know, active for a long time. So the Stinger missile, which we shut down completely for a while; Think F-16, you know, again. One of the keys, not all of it, is keeping hot, active production lines,” said CHRISTINE MICHIENZI, the senior technology adviser to the office of the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. Michienzi was answering a question about the Taiwan FMS backlog at a Defense News webinar on Wednesday.

Sullivan told NatSec Daily that he was proud the senators could show their “ongoing support” for Taiwan. “While the CCP wants the world to believe that Taiwan is isolated, nothing could be further from the truth.”

NatSec Daily also checked with Kelly’s office about Ernst’s readout but didn’t hear back before we published. Sullivan told the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the meeting late Tuesday, that he discussed a sanctions bill with Tsai while Kelly added that semiconductors featured in the conversation.

Tsai’s chat with the lawmakers, part of her “transit” (cough “visit” cough) through the United States, was kept quiet until hours before the president’s meeting with McCarthy in California. Ernst said she hasn’t personally briefed the speaker on the contents of her engagement with Tsai, but the Iowa lawmaker expects Tsai will deliver the same message to McCarthy.

In a statement before their highly anticipated encounter, Tsai thanked a group of bipartisan lawmakers for showing up at the site. “Their presence and unwavering support reassure the people of Taiwan that we are not isolated and we are not alone,” she said. McCarthy added on: “I’m optimistic that we will continue to find ways for the people of America and Taiwan to work together and promote economic freedom, democracy, peace and stability.”

China sent a carrier group off of Taiwan’s coast Wednesday, seemingly a reaction to the high-profile meeting.

EUROPE, CHINA, RUSSIA: French President EMMANUEL MACRON has already made quite a splash after landing in Beijing this morning, declaring that China can have a key role in the “path to peace,” our own CLEA CAULCUTT reports from Beijing.

The French president, together with European Commission President URSULA VON DER LEYEN, will meet with XI JINPING Thursday for a high-stakes meeting.

Overall, the EU is far less hawkish than the U.S. would like. The new mantra, repeated by Von der Leyen and Macron in recent days, is “de-risking not decoupling.”

Macron said he didn’t agree with everything in China’s 12-point peace plan for the war in Ukraine, but he did say Beijing could play a more constructive role in ending the war –– not fueling it further by partnering with Russia.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister DMYTRO KULEBA also told our own SUZANNE LYNCH on the fringes of this week’s NATO foreign ministers’ meeting that any peace plan proposed by China that allows for Russian rule over any Ukrainian territory — including Crimea — is a non-starter.

“I said it to my Chinese counterpart, the foreign minister in particular, that there is one thing that really is the common foundation for your foreign policy and our foreign policy is the principle of territorial integrity,” he said. “So anything you can do to restore peace that will respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, is welcome. Every peace concept that is based on a different principle will be rejected.”

RAID ON AL AQSA, GAZA ROCKETS: A raid by Israeli forces inside al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem Wednesday led to the firing of rockets from Gaza and retaliatory airstrike from Israel, the Washington Post’s LOUISA LOVELUCK, NIHA MASIH and MIRIAM BERGER report.

Israeli police say they launched the raid during Ramadan after worshippers locked themselves inside the site, which is holy to Muslims and Jews. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said 12 people were badly wounded following beatings in the compound and the use of stun grenades and metal-tipped rubber bullets.

Israeli authorities arrested 350 people, while two officers were injured as people around the compound threw rocks and launched firecrackers at them.

At least nine rockets were launched from Gaza into Israel following the scenes at the mosque. Five were intercepted in the air and four landed in open space. An official from Hamas, which controls Gaza, said the raid was a “serious crime to which the Palestinian people and resistance will respond.”

National Security Council spokesperson JOHN KIRBY urged “both sides” to de-escalate tensions in a Wednesday briefing with reporters.

‘DEFEAT’ OF AL SHABAAB: Somalia’s president says the military “defeat” of the al-Shabaab terrorist group will soon follow the military offensive he ordered.

“Two things are there to defeat al-Shabaab: one is militarily, another is ideological,” President HASSAN SHEIKH MOHAMUD told the Financial Times’ ANDRES SCHIPANI on Wednesday. “The ideological war will continue for some time but, in the military one, I believe we’ll defeat them.”

The offensive, backed by the United States, is helped by the group’s dropping popularity due to their forced recruitment and extortion. People in regions the group controls are rising against them and defections have weakened its appeal.

Mogadishu has also made deals with militias throughout Somalia that have helped recapture seized territory. The injection of 20,000 African Union troops, mixed with drone strikes and training from the U.S. and Turkey, has also steeled the offensive.

The hardest part remains, as taking Jubaland and the Southwest State –– Shabaab’s main area of control –– will come in the next phase of operations.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ CAMERON HUDSON told NatSec Daily that the Somali president has said defeat of Shabaab was within sight for a long time and there’s still hard work ahead. “That said, he clearly has a strategy to defeat them,” as his forces have “rolled back al-Shabaab in several parts of central Somalia, cut off some of their financing and is importantly doing a lot more to win hearts and minds.”

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HALEY ON BORDER: NIKKI HALEY was the first 2024 candidate to go to the southern border, and she’s making her emphasis on border security central to her early presidential pitch.

“Securing our borders is essential to national security,” the former U.N. ambassador wrote in a New York Post op-ed late Tuesday, noting that nearly 100 people on the government’s terrorist watchlist were stopped by border agents last year. “It will be a top priority when I’m president,” she earlier told Fox News.

Haley in New Hampshire last month offered a three-point plan to secure the border: require businesses to use e-verify during the hiring process, fire IRS agents to then hire more Border Patrol and ICE workers and stop giving federal dollars to illegal migrants.

Haley’s Monday visit underscores the importance that Mexico and immigration have already played in the 2024 debate. Republicans sense Biden is vulnerable on the issue, and current and former candidates are staking out their positions by calling for drug cartels to be labeled as foreign terrorist organizations or insisting that the U.S. military should take action against them –– even without Mexico’s permission.

CYBERCRIME WAVE?: A government-backed service in Australia is worried that a new privacy law will spur a cybercrime wave, Reuters’ BYRON KAYE reports.

IDCare, a non profit, fears that “making it easier for regulators to fine companies for poor data security and failing to criminalize ransom payment, Australia may inadvertently fuel a cyber-crimewave,” per Kaye.

That message was delivered to Australia’s attorney general, who is reviewing privacy laws that will impact life online. “A significant reason why Australian governments and businesses are increasingly targeted by ransomware attacks ... is because we pay,” IDCare wrote. “In terms of ransomware attacks, Australia is open for business.”

Australia is the fifth-most targeted nation by cyber criminals, per IDCare.

UNMANNED SYSTEMS: The Navy will expand the use of unmanned systems in Latin America beginning in July, Navy Secretary CARLOS DEL TORO and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. MIKE GILDAY said during the Sea-Air-Space maritime exposition Tuesday.

Per our friends at Morning Defense (for Pros!), the service is already experimenting with uncrewed systems in the Middle East as part of Task Force 59. But in U.S. Southern Command the Navy plans to use drones and unmanned vessels in day-to-day operations.

Instead of establishing a new task force, an office will reside within the U.S. 4th Fleet.

“We wanted to take a different approach rather than a task force this time because as I mentioned, we’re integrating additional sensors into the battle space,” Gilday told reporters. Del Toro told reporters that Central and South America was selected to aid partners in combating drug trafficking and illegal fishing in the region.

It’s unclear if drones or something else will soon make their way to the 4th Fleet.

YOON TO ADDRESS CONGRESS: South Korean President YOON SUK-YEOL will address a joint session of Congress when he’s in Washington later this month, Bloomberg News’ JENNY LEONARD reports.

U.S. lawmakers who met with Yoon in Seoul Wednesday told him of the forthcoming formal invitation. Yoon has already accepted, saying he was “pleased” to deliver an “historic address.”

Yoon will join President JOE BIDEN for a state visit and dinner on April 26 and will give the speech the following day. It will be the first address by a South Korean president to Congress in 10 years.

CODEL TO ASIA: Sen. JEFF MERKLEY (D-Ore.) will lead a bicameral delegation to Vietnam and Indonesia for an eight-day trip this week. The goal is to discuss climate change, human rights and China with a variety of groups in both nations.

Merkley will be joined by Sen. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-Md.) and Reps. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-Wash.), LLOYD DOGGETT (D-Texas) and ILHAN OMAR (D-Minn.).

The lawmakers will attend more than 35 meetings to include top government officials, ASEAN representatives, civil society groups, industry leaders and more.

‘WAR CRIMINAL’: An officer in Russian President VLADIMIR PUTIN’s elite personal security service fled his country — and called his former boss a “war criminal” in the process.

“Our president has become a war criminal,” Gleb Karakulov said in an interview conducted by the Dossier Center and shared with the Associated Press’ ERIKA KINETZ. “It is time to end this war and stop being silent.”

Karakulov defected in October, around the time of military mobilization, leaving with his wife and daughter. He’s since told a story about Putin that echoes similar accounts: He doesn’t use a cellphone or the internet and prefers unfettered access to state television. Instead of flying, Putin prefers to move around by armored train and has had a bunker installed under Russia’s embassy in Kazakhstan.

“All the information he receives is only from people close to him. That is, he lives in a kind of information vacuum,” Karakulov said.

Meanwhile, Putin on Wednesday told U.S. Ambassador LYNNE TRACY that the United States is responsible for the dramatic deterioration of relations between Washington and Moscow.

“Relations between Russia and the United States, which global security and stability directly depend on, are going through a deep crisis, unfortunately,” Putin said. “Supporting the color revolutions, supporting the coup d'état in Kyiv in 2014, in the end led to today’s Ukrainian crisis,” Putin told the new envoy during her credentials presentation.

CORRECTION: Yesterday’s newsletter misstated the day that Mike Pompeo visited Kyiv. It was Monday.

— GABE SEHR is now director for legislative affairs at the National Security Council. He previously served as a congressional liaison at the Columbia Class Submarine Program Office in the Navy.

— BISHOP GARRISON has joined the Intelligence and National Security Alliance as vice president for policy. A former DoD official, Garrison was most recently VP for government affairs and public policy at Paravision.AI.

— LISA PETERSON has been nominated as the next U.S. ambassador to Burundi. She’s currently the principal deputy assistant secretary of State in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor.

— Sen. ROGER WICKER, Fox News: What we know now about China’s spy flights is worse than anyone imagined

— ERNEST MONIZ and SAM NUNN, Foreign Affairs: Confronting the New Nuclear Peril

— CHARLOTTE BULL, The Diplomat: China’s Panda Diplomacy is Not Breeding Conservation

— University of Chicago, 9:00 a.m.: The War Horse Symposium

— Center for Strategic and International Studies, 9:30 a.m.: U.S.-ROK Military Exercises & North Korean Provocations - Capital Cable #68

— Mitchell Institute, 10 a.m.: Aerospace Nation: Lt Gen RICHARD MOORE & Lt Gen PHILIP A. GARRANT

— Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, 10 a.m.: What Are the Consequences of Backdoors for Online Privacy?

— Atlantic Council, 10:15 a.m.: Rebalancing responsibility: Implementing the National Cybersecurity Strategy

— Center for a New American Security, 11 a.m.: Disarming the Bomb: Distilling the Drivers and Disincentives for Iran’s Nuclear Program

— Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1:15 p.m.: Twenty Years After Saddam: The Future of the U.S.-Iraq Relationship

— American Enterprise Institute, 2 p.m.: Reconstructing Ukraine’s Infrastructure

— Vandenburg Coalition, 3 p.m.: Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America

Thanks to our editor, Heidi Vogt, who we think needs more “training, training, training” on how to write.

We also thank our producer, Jeffrey Horst, who should probably lead the training.