Mr Trump told a group of senators earlier this year that he was willing to increase the federal petrol tax by 25 cents — a key stepping stone towards funding road construction and repair. The increase is higher than what many Democrats had been hoping for.

Mr Mortimer of the US Chamber of Commerce, which favours the fuel tax increase, noted that the federal petrol tax had not been raised since 1993 and has lost more than a third of its purchasing power in the years since.

The Trust Fund was $16bn short of the annual funding it needed to continue supporting its current services, Mr DeFazio said. That did not include non-emergency repairs, such as fixing the more than 40,000 US bridges that were structurally deficient, he said.

https://www.ft.com/content/547acd96-0a5f-11e9-9fe8-acdb36967cfc

As real trading and talks can about different thing completely.