Donald Trump’s wide-ranging tax reforms have cost McDonald’s – reputedly one of the president’s favourite restaurant chains – hundreds of millions of dollars in unavoidable expenses linked to the legislation.

The company said the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which aims to reduce corporation tax from 35pc to 21pc, has cost it a net $700m (£500m), equivalent to 82 cents a share. The news took around 0.4pc off McDonald’s shares in early trading in the US to put them at $177.11.

The figure was caused by a $1.2bn tax cost on the repatriation of foreign earnings partly offset by a $500m benefit due to the lower tax rate and meant earnings were marginally below the expectations of Wall Street.

But stripping out this and other exceptional items such as the $342m it spent honing the company’s strategy, its earnings were up 10pc to $5.4bn in 2017, in spite of a 7pc drop in total sales to $22.8bn.

McDonald's, which is run from the US by Brit Steve Easterbrook, said like-for-like global revenue rose 5.3pc.

The restaurant chain does not give a detailed geographical breakdown of how it is performing but said like-for-like sales in its ‘international lead’ division, which includes the UK, were up 6pc.