Trump news: White House 'is in fast competition' with Nixon administration on obstruction, Watergate accuser says

Mr Trump said that this weekend’s trade deal with Mexico came out so quickly because of tariff threats from the US.

The president said during his CNBC interview with Squawk Box the deal came together in just two days because Mexico’s leaders knew that the alternative would have been worse.

“Tariffs are a beautiful thing when you’re the piggy bank,” Mr Trump said.

“If we didn’t have tariffs, we wouldn’t have a deal with Mexico,” he added. “We got everything we wanted and we’re going to be a great partner to Mexico now because now they respect us. They didn’t even respect us. They couldn’t believe how stupid we were with everything that’s going on.”

The trade deal has been criticised for not containing much new information, with activists saying it will do little to slow down immigration at the US-Mexico border, which was Mr Trump's main target in threatening tariffs.

Last month, Mr Trump threatened 5 per cent tariffs on Mexican goods to be imposed on Monday. The duties would have increased every month until they reached 25 per cent in October, unless Mexico stopped illegal immigration across its border with the US.

But there are few details about the new deal and it does not contain any new announcements about combating the movement of migrants and refugees from Central America to the US, which make up the bulk of those crossing the southern border.

Moving onto the spat with China, Mr Trump said he believed China will make a trade deal with the United States because Beijing needs to make an agreement.

Mr Trump claimed China devalues its currency and said something should be done about that because it creates an uneven playing field. He criticised US Federal Reserve policies as "destructive" for not lowering US interest rates. 

However, the president said that the issues over the involvement of Chinese technology firm Huawei in US infrastructure could be solved as part of a trade deal.

That is a bit of an odd statement as Washington has made it clear that it sees the company as a risk to US security and has admonished the UK for looking to involve the company in their 5G infrastructure projects.

Mr Trump added that potentially billions of dollars of additional tariffs on Chinese goods will go into place if Chinese president Xi Jinping does not attend the G20 meeting set to take place in Osaka, Japan at the end of the month.

When asked if that means the new tariffs would go into effect immediately, Mr Trump told CNBC: “Yes, it would.”

Mr Trump has said that a meeting is scheduled between himself and Mr Xi, although Beijing has told AFP it has "no information" about it.

Mr Trump has also had his say about the European Union, saying that he likes the way the EU fines big tech companies - and that the money collected would be useful for Washington too.

He pointed to previous EU investigations into companies like Apple and Google, saying that “they’re great companies” but “something’s going on.” The president said that as a result, EU gets “all this money, we should be doing that.”

“We should be doing what they’re doing.”

Ever one to try and give with one hand and take away with the other, Mr Trump also criticised the EU for their dealings with the US.

"The person at the European Union that's in charge of taxation hates the United States more than any person anywhere in the world," he said.

Mexico has just announced it will discuss a "safe third country" agreement with the United States - in which migrants entering Mexican territory must apply for asylum there rather than the US - if the flow of undocumented immigrants continues

Elsewhere, Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston won a Tony award for his performance as deranged newscaster Howard Beale in a new Broadway adaptation of Sidney Lumet's classic satire Network on Sunday night and used his platform to attack Trump.

"The media is not the enemy of the people," Cranston said as he picked up his best actor gong, contradicting one of the president’s frequent claims against The NYT. "Demagoguery is the enemy of the people."