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NATION/WORLD Friday, March 1, 2019 East Oregonian A7 U.S. growth is likely to slow from 2.6 pct. pace last quarter By MARTIN CRUTSINGER AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy turned in a solid performance in 2018, boosted in part by tax cuts and higher govern- ment spending. But growth slowed by year’s end, and most economists envision a weaker outlook for the com- ing months and probably years. The nation’s gross domestic product, the broadest gauge of economic health, expanded at a 2.6 per- cent annual rate in the Octo- ber-December period, the government said Thursday. That was down from a 3.4 percent rate in the July-Sep- tember period and a sizzling 4.2 percent pace from April through June. During those months, the economy bene- fited from tax cuts and from higher government spend- ing, the gains from which are thought to be fading. For 2018 as a whole, GDP growth amounted to 2.9 per- cent, the government said, the best showing since 2015. It was just below the 3 per- cent pace the administration has said it can maintain con- sistently. By contrast, most economists foresee slower growth ahead. For the cur- rent January-March quar- ter, many analysts say they think growth could slow to a 2 percent annual rate or less. “I think the economy will be steadily throttling back over the next two years,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. The economy’s pace of expansion last quarter reflected a slowdown in con- sumer spending and the start of a 35-day partial shutdown of the government, which subtracted an estimated 0.1 percentage point from growth. That weakness was offset somewhat by a gain in business investment and less of a drag from trade. The $1.5 trillion tax cut that President Don- ald Trump pushed through Congress in late 2017 and billions of extra dollars in government spending that Congress added for mili- tary and domestic programs helped accelerate the econ- omy last year. In the view of most econ- omists, though, 2018 may turn out to have been the economy’s high point for some time. Many are fore- casting that growth this year will slow to around 2.2 percent and to weaken fur- ther in 2020. Some analysts say they think the economy could even dip into reces- sion next year as the support from the tax cuts fades and the global economy sputters. PG&E: Company equipment ‘probable’ cause of California fire By SUDHIN THANAWALA and CATHY BUSSEWITZ Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO — Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. inched closer to tak- ing responsibility for the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century, saying Thurs- day it is “probable” that one of its transmission lines sparked the blaze last year that killed 86 people and destroyed most of the city of Paradise. The embattled util- ity company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, said it’s taking a $10.5 billion charge for claims connected to the fire in its fourth quarter earn- ings. The fire destroyed 14,000 homes in and around Paradise — a city of 27,000 people in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. But firefighters located its start near a tower on PG&E’s Caribou-Palermo transmission line. “Based on the informa- tion currently known to the company and reported to the California Public Util- ities Commission (CPUC) and other agencies, the company believes it is prob- able that its equipment will be determined to be an igni- tion point of the 2018 Camp Fire,” PG&E said in a news release. PG&E has previously acknowledged that the Car- ibou-Palermo transmis- sion line lost power right before the fire and was later found to be damaged. It also included the blaze among the more than $30 billion in potential wildfire liabilities it said it was facing when it announced plans to file for bankruptcy in January. But it had not gone as far as it did Thursday in connecting the line to the blaze. “We recognize that more must be done to adapt to and address the increas- ing threat of wildfires and extreme weather in order to keep our customers and communities safe,” said John Simon, interim CEO of PG&E. “We are tak- ing action now on import- ant safety and mainte- nance measures identified through our accelerated and enhanced safety inspections and will continue to keep our regulators, customers and investors informed of our efforts.” AP Photo/Evan Vucci President Donald Trump meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday in Hanoi. Trump and Kim end summit with standoff over easing U.S. sanctions By JONATHAN LEMIRE, DEB RIECHMANN and FOSTER KLUG Associated Press HANOI, Vietnam — Talks between President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un col- lapsed on Thursday after the two sides failed to bridge a standoff over U.S. sanc- tions, a dispiriting end to high-stakes meetings meant to disarm a global nuclear threat. Trump blamed the break- down on North Korea’s insistence that all the pun- ishing sanctions the U.S. has imposed on Pyongyang be lifted without the North committing to eliminate its nuclear arsenal. “Sometimes you have to walk,” Trump explained at a closing news confer- ence after the summit was abruptly cut short. He said there had been a proposed agreement that was “ready to be signed.” “I’d much rather do it right than do it fast,” Trump said. “We’re in position to do something very special.” Mere hours after both nations had seemed hope- ful of a deal, the two lead- ers’ motorcades roared away from the downtown Hanoi summit site within minutes of each other, their lunch canceled and a signing cer- emony scuttled. The presi- dent’s closing news confer- ence was hurriedly moved up, and he departed for Washington more than two hours ahead of schedule. The disintegration of talks came after Trump and Kim had appeared to be ready to inch toward normal- izing relations between their still technically warring nations and as the American leader dampened expecta- tions that their negotiations would yield an agreement by North Korea to take con- crete steps toward ending a nuclear program that Pyong- yang likely sees as its stron- “BASICALLY, THEY WANTED THE SANCTIONS LIFTED IN THEIR ENTIRETY, AND WE COULDN’T DO THAT.” President Donald Trump gest security guarantee. In something of a role reversal, Trump had delib- erately ratcheted down some of the pressure on North Korea, abandoning his fiery rhetoric and declaring that he wanted the “right deal” over a rushed agreement. For his part, Kim, when asked whether he was ready to denuclearize, had said, “If I’m not willing to do that I won’t be here right now.” The breakdown denied Trump a much-needed tri- umph amid growing domes- tic turmoil back home, including congressional testimony this week by his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, who called Trump a “racist” and “con man” and claimed prior knowledge that WikiLeaks would release emails that would damage Hillary Clin- ton’s campaign in 2016. North Korea’s state media made no immediate comment on the diplomatic impasse, and Kim remained in his locked-down hotel after leaving the summit venue. The North Korean leader was scheduled to meet with top Vietnamese leaders on Friday and leave Saturday on his armored train for the long return trip, through China, to North Korea. Trump insisted his rela- tions with Kim remained warm, but he did not com- mit to having a third sum- mit with the North Korean leader, saying a possible next meeting “may not be for a long time.” Though both he and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said sig- nificant progress had been made in Hanoi, the two sides appeared to be galax- ies apart on an agreement that would live up to U.S. stated goals. “Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that,” Trump told reporters. Kim, he explained, appeared willing to close his country’s main nuclear facil- ity, the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center, if the sanctions were lifted. But that would leave him with missiles, warheads and weapon systems, Pompeo said. There are also sus- pected hidden nuclear fuel production sites around the country. “We couldn’t quite get there today,” Pompeo said, minimizing what seemed to be a chasm between the two sides. Longstanding U.S. policy has insisted that U.S. sanc- tions on North Korea would not be lifted until that coun- try committed to, if not con- cluded, complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclear- ization. Trump declined to restate that goal Thursday, insisting he wanted flexibil- ity in talks with Kim. “I don’t want to put myself in that position from the standpoint of negotia- tion,” he said. White House aides stressed that Trump stood strong, and some observ- ers evoked the 1987 Reyk- javík summit between Ron- ald Reagan and the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev, a meeting over nuclear weapons that ended without a deal but laid the ground- work for a future agreement. The failure in Hanoi laid bare a risk in Trump’s unpre- dictable negotiating style: Preferring one-on-one meet- ings with his foreign coun- terparts, his administration often eschews the staff-level work done in advance to assure a deal and envisions summits more as messaging opportunities than venues for hardline negotiation. There was disappoint- ment and alarm in South Korea, whose liberal leader has been a leading orches- trator of the nuclear diplo- macy and who needs a breakthrough to restart lucrative engagement proj- ects with the impoverished North. Yonhap news agency said that the clock on the Korean Peninsula’s security situation has “turned back to zero” and diplomacy is now “at a crossroads.” Destiny Theatres Fri - Wed, Mar. 1, 2019 - Mar. 6, 2019 Subject to change. Check times daily. 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Get a jump on the competition and start studying! Trivia Games 2019 is all about the “Diverse Peoples of Umatilla County” Aimee Rogers, MD 3001 St. Anthony Way Pendleton, OR 97801 Tickets are $25/person, or $120/table of 6 Ticket price includes a Corned Beef & Cabbage Dinner & Dessert Tickets are available at Heritage Station Museum 108 SW Frazer, Pendleton Call for your appointment today 541.966.0535 FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT WWW.SAHPENDLETON.ORG
