The Chancellor is in Washington where she’s limbering up to lock horns with the self-styled Master of the Deal, US President Donald Trump. On the agenda: cars, chicken and tech taxes. So, do we fancy her chances? 

Rachel Reeves has a busy couple of days in Washington where she’s participating in the IMF’s annual summit of finance ministers. She’ll also take the opportunity to try and get a US-UK trade deal over the line. 

Let’s take the IMF first, after the international body slashed global growth forecasts in the wake of Trump’s tariff chaos. While they remain on the more optimistic side of economic forecasts they’ve still slashed their expectations of global growth from 2.7 per cent to 1.8 per cent as they warn of a “significant slowdown” in the world economy.

The IMF also cut its UK growth forecast from 1.6 per cent to 1.1 per cent – a chunky downgrade though still higher than many other economists are predicting. 

More worryingly, the IMF’s economists expect the UK to take the crown for having the highest rate of inflation among the world’s advanced economies, at 3.1 per cent this year largely due to higher bills. The IMF also made it clear that their downgrade to the UK economy has more to do with domestic policy choices than the fallout from........

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