Gideon Rachman: “The TACO phrase was drawn to Trump’s attention in a press conference last week. He was not amused and called it a ‘nasty question.'”

“All the nastier, perhaps, for being accurate. In fact, ‘TACO’ is not just a useful heuristic for investors. It also turns out to be a key to analyzing Trump’s foreign policy.”

“As Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations points out in a recent paper, Trump enjoys issuing blood-curdling threats of the use of force. But he very rarely follows through.”

“Two decades ago, factories in Indiana that turned rare earth metals into magnets moved production to China — just as demand for the magnets was starting to soar for everything from cars and semiconductors to fighter jets and robots,” the New York Times reports.

“The United States is now reckoning with the cost of losing that supply chain. The Chinese government abruptly halted exports of rare earth magnets to any country on April 4 as part of its trade war with the United States.”

The Economist: “According to sources, the mission was 18 months in the making. Russia had been expecting attacks by larger fixed-wing drones at night and closer to the border with Ukraine. The Ukrainians reversed all three variables, launching small drones during the day, and doing so far from the front lines. Ukraine had launched drones from within Russia previously; the difference was the scale and combined nature of the operations.”

“Commentators close to the Ukrainian security services suggest that as many as 150 drones and 300 bombs had been smuggled into Russia for the operations. The quadcopters were apparently built into wooden cabins, loaded onto lorries and then released after the roofs of the cabins were remotely retracted. The drones used Russian mobile-telephone networks to relay their footage back to Ukraine, much of which was released by the gleeful Ukrainians. They also used elements of automated targeting, the accounts claim…”

“Western armed forces are watching closely. For many years they have concentrated their own aircraft at an ever smaller number of air bases, to save money, and have failed to invest in hardened hangars or shelters that could protect against drones and missiles. America’s own strategic bombers are visible in public satellite imagery, sitting in the open.”

“Iran is poised to reject a U.S. proposal to end a decades-old nuclear dispute, an Iranian diplomat said on Monday, dismissing it as a ‘non-starter’ that fails to address Tehran’s interests or soften Washington’s stance on uranium enrichment,” Reuters reports.

Politico: “More than 100 drones were smuggled deep into Russia by Ukrainian spies and hidden in the rooftops of specially constructed wooden cabins. These roofs then opened remotely at the moment of attack, with the drones swarming out and striking more than 40 bomber jets parked at Russian airfields across the country. One of the targets — the Belaya airfield in Siberia — is 3,500 miles from Ukraine… Yet Russia never saw it coming.”

“This is a game-changing moment in modern warfare, with repercussions for every serious military on the planet, including here in America. At relatively little expense — although with jaw-dropping audacity — a small-ish nation has delivered a major strategic setback to one of the most powerful militaries on earth, deep inside its own territory.”