Discussions between Democrats and Republicans are going nowhere. Yesterday, negotiations between the two sides resumed, but no proposal was received with enough votes to pass the Senate stage. Even before he went to the polls, Donald Trump tweeted, "we won't give in!" His plan to end the budget blockage was... to include in the budget the $5.7 billion envelope for the construction of the wall, and to provide a three-year deadline for the one million immigrants threatened with deportation. But this project, which made it possible to finance the government until September, did not appeal to the Democrats. In the Senate, the draft received 53 votes out of 100, against the 60 required to validate the text. In the aftermath, the Democrats made a counter-proposal to guarantee more controls and border security, but without a budget to finance the wall. Not surprisingly, this plan, which would have made it possible to stop the shutdown at least until February 8, also failed. Negotiations will continue today and Donald Trump said he would support Democrat and Republican leaders "if they can reach a reasonable agreement". But what Trump means by "reasonable" is up for debate...

The Sino-American conflict is not yet ready to be resolved. Despite hopes of appeasement between the two powers that have been running for two weeks and comments from Trump that the negotiations are "going very well", the US Secretary of Commerce revealed on CNBC that the trade dispute was still far from being resolved: "we are miles and miles away from finding a solution". Nevertheless, he qualified his remarks by referring to "a reasonable chance" that Washington and Beijing will find a point of agreement and conclude an agreement, because both of them want it.

In the euro zone, rates remain very low. Yesterday, the ECB decided to keep interest rates very low in order to encourage households and businesses to borrow and invest in this context of economic slowdown. Macroeconomic data are indeed "weaker" than expected due to geopolitical risks to the European economy. Mario Draghi considered that the ECB would not be "short of instruments" if the trend were to deteriorate further.

In other news. The German business daily Handelsblatt revealed that the government will lower its growth forecast for 2019 to 1.0%, down from 1.8% a few months ago. Bank of England (BoE) Governor Mark Carney warned (during his speech in Davos) about the lack of preparedness and the "logistical problems" that British companies will face in the case of a no-deal Brexit.