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BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s economy cooled in the fourth quarter under pressure from faltering domestic demand and bruising U.S. tariffs, dragging 2018 growth to the lowest in nearly three decades and pressuring Beijing to roll out more stimulus to avert a sharper slowdown.

Fourth-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) grew at the slowest pace since the global financial crisis, easing to 6.4 percent on-year as expected from 6.5 percent in the third quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday.

That pulled full-year growth down to 6.6 percent, the slowest annual pace since 1990. GDP in 2017 grew a revised 6.8 percent.

With support measures expected to take some time to kick in, most analysts believe conditions are likely to get worse before they get better, and see a further slowing to 6.3 percent this year.

Some China watchers believe actual growth is already weaker than official data suggest.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is reviving efforts to win approval for a significant infrastructure plan lasting up to 13 years, two people briefed on the matter said, as the administration seeks to bring a long-stalled campaign promise back to life.

In a meeting of top advisers at the White House on Tuesday, the sources, who declined to be identified since the meeting was not public, said participants discussed aspects of a potential infrastructure plan and whether to include details of it in Trump’s State of the Union address scheduled for later this month.
About 20 officials took part in the more than hour-long meeting with Trump, including Vice President Mike Pence, White House senior adviser Ivanka Trump, acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, the sources said.

They discussed how to incorporate into the plan funding for a next-generation wireless network, known as 5G, and potentially using the plan to modernize the U.S. air traffic control system, the people said. It followed a senior staff-level meeting on infrastructure earlier this month.

A White House official confirmed the meeting took place but declined to comment

further.The administration is considering a 13-year program but has not settled on key issues, including whether it will propose new ways to pay for increased spending.

Theresa May’s bid to break Britain’s Brexit gridlock faltered Thursday after she refused to give up her red lines to reach a compromise with her political opponents.

Less than 24 hours after the prime minister started talks with senior politicians from six parties in Parliament, she was locked in a political stalemate with the leader of the main opposition Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn.

May is trying to resuscitate her Brexit deal after Parliament voted it down in a landslide defeat Tuesday. She’s meeting with the heads of rival parties in an effort to find a way forward, but in a letter Corbyn demanded that May rule out the possibility of a no-deal exit before he’ll even meet with her.

May wrote back, saying Corbyn’s precondition was “impossible” and she told a group of pro-Brexit Conservatives Thursday that she wouldn’t rule out a no-deal exit, delay Brexit day or keep Britain in a customs union with the EU, according to people familiar with the matter.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – After tax cuts, rising incomes and buoyant stock markets set off a consumer boom in 2018, signs are emerging that the main engine of U.S. economic growth could sputter, and a record-long government shutdown further muddies the waters.

Federal Reserve officials and many economists have long counted on continued robust consumer spending to keep the economy chugging along, despite headwinds from recent financial markets turbulence, trade conflicts and weakening global growth.

Now they fear the consumer boom could be on the cusp of a reversal.

Economists are also not certain, for example, whether last year’s personal income tax cut will lead to higher refunds and boost big-ticket purchases, such as home appliances, typical for this time of year, or whether the windfall was already spent last year when paycheck withholding declined.

The shutdown, now in its 28th day, could delay refunds and hit companies that rely on consumers spending a chunk of that money on their goods or services.

The government shutdown clouds the outlook for spending, retailers and the economy at large because executives and policymakers weigh not the direct impact of 800,000 federal workers going without pay, but also how much it can hurt consumer and business confidence.

Chicago Federal Reserve President Charles Evans said last week that while the immediate effects of the shutdown on the U.S. $20.7-trillion economy would be small, the indirect, psychological impact could be substantial.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea’s lead negotiator in nuclear diplomacy with the United States is expected to hold talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and could also meet President Donald Trump on Friday during a visit aimed at clearing the way for a second U.S.-North Korea summit.

Kim Yong Chol arrived in Washington on Thursday evening for his first visit since he came last June ahead of a landmark meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore. Efforts made since then to get Pyongyang to denuclearize appear to have stalled.

Pompeo had planned to meet Kim Yong Chol to discuss a second summit last November, but the meeting was postponed at the last moment. Kim Jong Un said in a New Year speech he was willing to meet Trump “at any time.”

Like others caught up in the U.S. government shutdown, Brent Langdon has been cutting back on spending and is worried about his next mortgage payment.

Yet unlike the hundreds of thousands of federal workers affected by the funding impasse, Langdon can’t look forward to eventually getting back pay because he is a contractor.

“It’s very concerning right now,” said Langdon, who does information technology for the Agriculture Department in Colorado. “I’m looking for side gigs, something to help pay the bills.”

The cumulative effects on Langdon and more than 1 million other contractors is enough to slow U.S. economic growth. The White House on Tuesday doubled its estimate of the cost of the government shutdown on the economy — saying it hadn’t been counting the effects on government contractors.

As the government shutdown that began Dec. 22, federal contractors are being hit particularly hard by the budget impasse over President Donald Trump demand for a border wall. On Wednesday, he signed legislation authorizing back pay for federal government workers once the shutdown ends.

Yet that doesn’t include contract workers such as Langdon, who asked that his employer not be named.

Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Kevin Hassett said the administration’s new estimate of the shutdown’s cost to U.S. economic output is a reduction of 0.13 percent every week, not 0.1 percent every two weeks as previously estimated.

BERLIN (Reuters) – A recent dip in euro zone inflation and growth was anticipated so it is not enough to unravel expectations of an interest rate hike, Sabine Lautenschlaeger, the most prominent hawk on the ECB Executive Board, said in an interview with Politico.

Euro zone indicators from industrial production to sentiment readings have consistently disappointed in recent months and investors have now pushed their expectations for the first rate hike well into next year.

However, when asked if she still expected a move in 2019, Lautenschlaeger said her views had not yet changed.

“I’ll wait for the projections coming in March before I change my view,” she was quoted as saying. “I’m data-driven in this, and I think that as we are still in the environment we projected.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump is likely to move ahead with tariffs on imported vehicles, a move that could prompt the European Union to agree a new trade deal, said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley on Wednesday.

“I think the president’s inclined to do it,” the Republican senator told reporters. “I think Europe (is) very very concerned about those tariffs … It may be the instrument that gets Europe to negotiate.”

U.S. Commerce Department recommendations into whether Trump should impose tariffs of up to 25 percent on imported cars and parts on national security grounds are due by mid-February. A Commerce Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, whose members include General Motors Co <GM.N)>, VW and Toyota Motor Corp, warned tariffs would boost imported car prices by nearly $6,000 on average.

LONDON (Reuters) – Prime Minister Theresa May won a confidence vote in the British parliament on Wednesday and then appealed to lawmakers from across the political divide to come together to try to break the impasse on a Brexit divorce agreement.

Lawmakers voted 325 to 306 that they had confidence in May’s government, just 24 hours after handing her European Union withdrawal deal a crushing defeat that left Britain’s exit from the bloc in disarray.