US in a very strong position, no boots on the ground against Iran: Trump

As tensions continued to mount between US and Iran in the aftermath of the downing of the US drone, President Trump in an interview to a US television network said there would be "no boots on the ground if US attacks".

"I hope we don't but we're in a very strong position if something should happen," adding,"I'm not talking boots on the ground ... I'm just saying if something would happen, it wouldn't last very long."

On the US-China trade war, the US president said China was "going down the tubes" and wanted a trade deal.

President Xi and Trump are due to meet in the G20 Summit in Osaka, Japan shortly with several experts hoping for a deal, although there has been no word on it from the White House.

"China wants a trade deal with the United States because its economy is weakening," the US president said.

However, on the trade front, the US president asserted that "Vietnam was worse than China on trade".

Vietnam was the "single worst abuser" on trade with the United States, worse even than China, he said.

"A lot of companies are moving to Vietnam, but Vietnam takes advantage of us even worse than China," he said.

"It's almost the single worst abuser of everybody," he added.

Trump said the European Union was out of line bringing lawsuits against US technology companies like Facebook and Google, saying legal action against those firms should be the purview of the United States.

She hates the United States perhaps worse than any person I've ever met," Trump said during the interview in an apparent reference to EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager.

"What she does to our country. She's suing all our companies. We should be suing Google and Facebook, and all that," he said. "They're suing Apple. They're suing everybody."