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The U.S. trade deficit fell 1.7% last year to $616.8 billion as President Donald Trump hammered China with import taxes.

A State of the Union address that recounted the administration’s record and outlined a vision for achieving policies on immigration and healthcare was also a forum for President Donald Trump to briefly tell Congress to consider a highway policy bill not yet ready for prime time.

Environmentalists and consumer advocacy groups are castigating automakers for supporting the Trump administration’s effort to relax fuel economy standards, amid fresh warnings from a Democratic leader that the plan won’t deliver promised safety benefits and will raise costs for consumers.

A draft of the final rule, now undergoing a final White House review, includes several changes that could make it easier to defend in court and more palatable to some automakers that had refused to publicly endorse the earlier proposal.

President Donald Trump’s administration asked a federal judge to throw out California’s lawsuit seeking to preserve its power to regulate tailpipe greenhouse gas emissions, saying Washington has the last word in setting fuel economy standards.

California sued the Trump administration for rescinding an Obama-era waiver that allows the state to require sales of electric vehicles and set stricter auto-emissions standards than the federal government.

The U.S. and China are close to finalizing sections of the first phase of a trade deal that President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping hope to sign at a summit in Chile next month, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative said.

President Donald Trump said China has indicated that negotiations over an initial trade deal are advancing, raising expectations the nations’ leaders could sign an agreement at a meeting next month in Chile.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign a limited trade agreement Oct. 7 with Japan, a deal that would win back benefits American farmers lost when Trump pulled out of a broader Asia-Pacific pact his first week in office.