United Steelworkers leaders on Thursday bashed a union letter-writing campaign in support of Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion takeover of U.S. Steel as “intimidating” and “unlawful” as President Joe Biden is due to decide the deal’s fate.

Union members in the Pittsburgh region were asked to sign a letter to Mr. Biden that states the merger with Japan’s largest steelmaker will “ensure that USW-represented facilities across the organization’s footprint will continue to mine, melt, and make steel in the United States for decades to come.”

Even though the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States continues to review Nippon Steel’s $14.1 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel, President Joe Biden is reportedly planning to block the deal even if CFIUS approves it. Reading between the lines of state media, no one is happier than the Chinese Communist Party.

The U.S. and Germany managed to thwart a Russian plot that would have killed the head of a major German arms manufacturer as part of a sabotage campaign against Ukrainian allies and support across Europe, intelligence officials revealed. 

"In view of the latest reports on Rheinmetall, this is what we have actually been communicating more and more clearly in recent months: Russia is waging a hybrid war of aggression," Annalena Baerbock, Germany's foreign minister, said on the sidelines of this week’s NATO summit. 

An alleged Russian plot to assassinate the chief executive of Germany's leading arms manufacturer was foiled earlier this year by US and German authorities, US media reported on Thursday.

Broadcaster CNN reported, citing five sources, including a senior German government official, that Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger was targeted due to the firm's arms deliveries to Ukraine.

US intelligence agencies are reported to have informed German counterparts of the plot, who subsequently took measures to protect Papperger.

US intelligence discovered earlier this year that the Russian government planned to assassinate the chief executive of a powerful German arms manufacturer that has been producing artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine, according to five US and western officials familiar with the episode.

A judge has ordered a Michigan community to stop blocking efforts to bring a major electric vehicle battery business to a rural region.

Gotion, a China-based manufacturer, was granted a preliminary injunction Friday after arguing that Mecosta County’s Green Township has refused to stick to an agreement made by elected officials who were subsequently removed from office.

In the wake of the judge’s ruling, community leaders say their fight is far from over.

The Biden administration expanded tariffs on imported solar panels on Thursday, capping a busy week of escalating trade barriers for climate tech that risks inviting a backlash from China in exchange for cementing the political coalition behind climate policy ahead of a high-stakes presidential election.

U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump both have big plans to reshape the post-COVID U.S. economy.

Sweeping 2024 U.S. presidential campaign ideas — like those embodied in Biden’s Build Back America and in Trump’s pledges to overhaul the U.S. civil service and the Federal Reserve, commence mass deportations, and require national teacher certification and college entrance and exit examinations — would face tough challenges in U.S. courts and to win a Senate majority.

President Joe Biden is set to increase tariffs on multiple Chinese imports, including electric vehicles, battery components, semiconductors, microchips, and steel and aluminum.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. ran for the White House as a sharp critic of President Donald J. Trump’s crackdown on trade with China. In office, though, he has taken Mr. Trump’s trade war with Beijing and escalated it, albeit with a very different aim.