The last set of growth figures for Barack Obama’s eight years in the White House could hardly have been better. Judging by the preliminary estimates, the pace of US growth slowed in the final three months of 2016 – and by more than Wall Street had been anticipating. Donald Trump, therefore, has a much easier inheritance than Obama, who came into office with the US suffering its biggest slump since the Great Depression. America’s poor trade performance subtracted 1.7 percentage points from growth in the final three months of 2016. It also goes against the trend for the first three quarters of 2016, when exports helped increase growth.

Source: The Guardian January 27, 2017 15:16 UTC