The US economy picked up speed over the three months to September, as consumer spending jumped and exports increased.

The world’s largest economy expanded at an annual rate of 4.3%, up from 3.8% in the previous quarter. That was better than expected and marked the strongest growth in two years.

The report, which had been delayed by the US government shutdown, sheds light on an economy that has been buffeted by dramatic changes to trade and immigration policies, as well as persistent inflation and cuts to government spending.

But while that has led to sharp swings in some areas, such as imports and exports, the underlying economy has maintained solid momentum, outperforming many forecasts.

“This is an economy that has defied doom and gloom expectations basically since the beginning of 2022,” said Aditya Bhave, senior economist at Bank of America.

Speaking to the BBC’s Business Today programme, Mr Bhave described the economy as “very, very resilient”.

“I don’t see why that wouldn’t continue going forward,” he added.

The overall growth figure for the third quarter of the year was much stronger than expected, with most analysts expecting an annual pace of about 3.2%.

It was lifted by consumer spending that rose at an annual rate of 3.5%, compared with 2.5% in the previous quarter, despite a slowing job market, as households spent more on health care services.

Imports – which count against growth – continued to decline, reflecting the wave of taxes on shipments entering the US that President Donald Trump announced this spring.

Meanwhile exports, which had dropped sharply, bounced back, surging by 7.4%. Government spending also rebounded, driven by defence outlays.

Those gains helped overcome a slowdown in business investment, including intellectual property, and a housing market struggling under the weight of still-high interest rates, which have heightened affordability issues and supply constraints.

He holds the position of chief US economist at Oxford Economics.

Michael Pearce, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, said the economy was well positioned as it headed into 2026, as it starts to feel the boost from tax cuts and the US central bank’s recent moves to drop interest rates.

“Underlying measures are consistent with a solid expansion,” he said.

However, some analysts warned that rising prices faced by some households could make it difficult to sustain the unusually strong pace of growth seen in the most recent quarter.

Over the three months to September, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures price index, ticked up 2.8%, compared with 2.1% in the previous quarter, according to the report.

Analysts have warned that those price increases are weighing on lower- and middle-income households, even as higher-income households continue to spend freely.

Oliver Allen, senior US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, noted that some more recent surveys and credit card data suggest that households are reining in their spending.

“The weak labour market, stagnant real incomes, and exhaustion of pandemic-era excess savings all seem to finally catch up with households,” he said.

Government proposals to tax inherited agricultural land have been weakened, with the planned threshold raised from £1m to £2.5m.

The drop follows months of protests by farmers and concern from some Labour backbenchers.

In last year’s budget, ministers said they would start imposing a 20% tax on inherited farm properties worth more than £1 million from April 2026. The government is ending the 100% tax relief that has been in place since the 1980s.

In an announcement made after MPs left Parliament for the Christmas holidays, Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds said, “We have listened carefully to farmers across the country, and we are making changes today to protect more ordinary family farms.”

“It is right that larger properties contribute more, while we support the farms and commercial businesses that are the backbone of Britain’s rural communities,” he said.

The National Farmers Union’s head, Tom Bradshaw, applauded the change, stating on BBC Radio 5 Live that it “protects numerous family farms from the impact of a severe storm”.

Gavin Lane, chairman of the Country Land and Business Association, said, “The Government deserves credit for recognising the flaws in the original policy and changing course.

“However, this declaration only limits the damage – it does not eliminate it completely.

“Many family businesses will have such expensive machinery and land that their value exceeds the threshold, yet they operate on such narrow profit margins that it becomes unaffordable to bear the tax burden.”

Ben Ardern, a Derbyshire farmer, expressed his approval to the BBC, calling it a positive step.

The government should exempt family farms.

He stated that the government should exempt family farms from the tax and only impose taxes on those who can afford to pay them.

“Big corporations that just hid money in land—they’re not farmers; they did it to avoid taxes. Farmers didn’t buy land to avoid taxes; we bought land to farm and grow food.”

Farmers have regularly protested outside Parliament in the 14 months since the initial proposal’s announcement.

Some Labour MPs from rural areas have also expressed concerns. In a recent parliamentary vote on the plan, a dozen backbenchers abstained and one, Marcus Campbell-Severs, voted against it.

Campbell-Severs was later suspended for voting against the government, meaning he now sits as an independent MP.

John Whitby, a Labour MP from the rural research group of backbenchers, said the government’s easing the inheritance tax was “fantastic news.”

But a Labour source described the timing of the change as “bizarre”.

He said many MPs would be angry because “they were recently forced to vote for it.”

“This fight is not over,” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said in a post on social media.

“Other family businesses are still affected by Labour’s tax raids, and we will keep applying the pressure until the tax is lifted from them too.”

Liberal Democrat spokesman Tim Farron MP said, “It is completely inexcusable that family farmers have had to endure more than a year of uncertainty and suffering since these changes were first announced by the Government.

“We demand that the government scrap this unfair tax altogether and if they refuse, the Liberal Democrats will table an amendment in the New Year to reduce it.”

Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, said: “This scandalous drop – although better than nothing – does little to address the year of anxiety that farmers have faced in planning to protect their livelihoods… With British agriculture hanging on by a thread, the government must step up and end this harsh farm tax.”

In her first budget in 2024, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced she would reverse the 100% inheritance tax relief on agricultural properties that had been in place since the 1980s.

The move would see inherited agricultural properties worth more than £1m taxed at 20%, half the standard inheritance tax rate, raising an estimated £520m a year by 2029.

The government had argued that the change would protect small farms while preventing wealthy investors from purchasing agricultural land as a way to avoid taxes.

However, it has now backtracked on the original proposal to raise the threshold level to £2.5m.

Combined with an exemption that allows farmers to pass tax-free assets to their spouses, this new government concession means a couple can give away up to £5 million in qualifying assets without paying tax.

Above the limit, a relief of 50% will be applied to the remaining assets.

According to the government, the number of estates in the UK expected to pay more inheritance tax in 2026/27 will fall from around 2,000 under the original plans to 1,100 under the new proposal.

A Treasury source said changing the limit would cost the government £130 million, but there were “no plans” to scrap the policy altogether.

“The principle remains to reform the tax system,” the source said. “It’s true that the wealthiest estates contribute fairly, but smaller farms will receive assistance.”

The government has made a series of U-turns since its election in July 2024, with this decline being the latest.

Earlier this year, the government effortlessly reduced the winter fuel payment and abandoned its plans to reduce the welfare bill by £5 billion.

A one-year-old Palestinian girl, Siwar, evacuated from Gaza due to severe nutritional problems, has returned to a hospital in the region after returning from Jordan. Siwar Ashour,

whose story the BBC has followed for several months was deported back to Gaza on December 3 after completing her medical treatment in Amman.

He spent six months in hospital there as part of a medical evacuation program run by the Kingdom of Jordan. Her grandmother Sahar Ashour said she became ill three days after returning.

“He started having diarrhoea and vomiting and his condition is getting worse. The diarrhoea will not go away,” he told a freelance journalist working for the BBC in Gaza.

Israel has banned international journalists from freely entering Gaza since the war began nearly two years ago.

Siwar is being treated at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.

Siwar is being treated at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip, where Dr Khalil al-Dakran told the BBC that he is “receiving the necessary treatment.

but the situation is still bad for him.” The doctor said that Siwar was suffering from a gastrointestinal infection.

He lacks an immune system, which makes it difficult for him to fight bacteria. She also struggles to absorb nutrition, which means she needs special infant formula.

Dr. Dakran said hospitals in Gaza—many of which were badly damaged by Israeli bombardment and nearby fighting with Hamas before the ceasefire took effect in October—were seeing an increase in children’s admissions.

The destruction of critical infrastructure has led to the spread of infection and disease due to poor sanitary conditions.

“Since the ceasefire was announced, the number of pediatric patients coming to hospitals in the Gaza Strip is three times the capacity… The situation at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is no different from other hospitals in the Gaza Strip.

“It suffers from a severe shortage of medicines and medical supplies, and there is also a major shortage of power generators, which are the main artery to keep the hospital running.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) described the humanitarian needs in Gaza as “shocking, with current assistance only addressing the most basic survival needs.”.

Siwar was flown to Jordan in June after the BBC reported on his case and raised it directly with Jordanian authorities.

Dr. Mohammed al-Momani, Jordan’s communications minister, told us that Siwar was among 45 children who returned to Gaza after completing their treatment. Under the evacuation plan, all patients are sent back after medical care.

I told Dr. al-Momani that people might have difficulty accepting that a child in such a vulnerable state could be returned to Gaza under the current circumstances.

“No patient is sent back before completing their medical treatment. The first reason for their return is that it will help us receive more patients from Gaza. We can’t take them all together. We have to take them in batches. Until now we have taken 18 batches.

The second reason is that we do not want to contribute in any way to the displacement of Palestinians from their land; therefore, all patients are asked to return after their treatment so that other patients and children can be brought in for care.

Jordan also treats war wounded in its field hospital in Gaza and provides aid through air drops and road convoys. The state hosts well over 2 million Palestinian refugees.

who fled the conflict with Israel since 1948, and 500,000 refugees from other countries, mostly Syrians.

Since last March, Jordan has brought about 300 of the 2,000 sick and injured children, along with 730 parents and guardians, for treatment.

Thousands of sick Gaza citizens have received treatment from other countries in the region, including the United Arab Emirates and Türkiye.

During the ongoing conflict, the special formula milk that Sivar needed was either not available or in very short supply.

Israel imposed a complete blockade of aid into Gaza in March, but after 11 weeks, it partially lifted it. Aid deliveries have increased since the ceasefire.

However, the United Nations and aid agencies report that there are insufficient humanitarian supplies.

Jordanian officials delivered a supply of 12 cans of hypoallergenic Neocate formula to Siwar’s family as they departed for Gaza. However, Najwa, her mother, informed us that Israeli authorities confiscated nine out of her 12 boxes.

“They told us, ‘It is forbidden to carry more than these boxes,’ ” said Najwa Ashour, Siwar’s mother. “Even though it is therapeutic milk and they said it was allowed for treatment, they still took it.”

He also said that extra clothes that had been given to the family in Jordan were also taken. They conducted a thorough search.

When the guards saw us dressed in layers, they refused to let us go outside and told us, ‘You have to take off all your clothes, even one dress.’

I asked the Israeli government why they confiscated the milk formula and clothes. He replied that there were limits on what could be withheld for “security reasons.”

He said only minimal luggage was allowed and the decision had been communicated to Jordanian authorities and returning families. “In cases where the luggage exceeded the permitted limit, he was refused entry.”

WHO has asked more nations to evacuate patients who can’t get treatment in Gaza.

It also called on the Israeli government to allow patients to be treated in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, “which is the most time- and cost-effective route.”

Israel stopped allowing such evacuations after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 abducted in Gaza.

Kogat, the Israeli military chief responsible for aid, announced a significant easing of the process for Gazans to relocate to third countries.

Siwar’s family has received Neocate milk formula since their return to Gaza. Money has also been donated, including money raised from an online appeal. Jordanian representatives in Gaza have also met with the family to provide assistance.

The Ashour family is once again trying to get Siwar evacuated, a process that has started with the issuance of permits by Palestinian health authorities. It will be managed by WHO, which deals with all evacuation requests from what the UN calls “a wasteland.”