President Donald Trump is praising his daughter, Ivanka, and acknowledging the challenges he's added to her life.

In a rare, self-deprecating moment in Hamburg, the US President said that he's been proud of his eldest daughter from "day one."

He said: "If she weren't my daughter it would be so much easier for her," adding with a laugh: "That might be the only bad thing she has going, if you want to know the truth."

The candid aside came as Trump was speaking at the launch of a new women's entrepreneurship fund that Ivanka Trump helped bring together.

Ivanka Trump moved to Washington to work as a senior adviser to her father and has faced pressure from critics who'd hoped she'd be able to push him to adopt more moderate policies.