By David Lawder and Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The International Monetary Fund on Friday slashed its U.S. economic growth forecast due to more aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate hikes but predicted that the United States would “narrowly” avoid a recession. In an annual assessment of U.S. economic policies, the IMF said it now expects U.S. GDP to grow 2.9% in 2022, compared with its most recent forecast of 3.7% in April. For 2023, the IMF cut its U.S. growth forecast to 1.7% from 2.3% and it now expects growth to trough at 0.8% in 2024. Last October, before the COVID-19 wave fue…