Ivanka Trump has backed her father's decision to end a Barack Obama initiative which aimed to close the gender pay gap.

Despite marketing herself as an "advocate for the empowerment of women and girls" in her Twitter biography, she backed the White House decision to stop the rule which would have required employers to collect data on how much they pay their workers, broken down by gender, race and ethnicity.

The rule would affect all employers with at least 100 workers .

Ms Trump wrote in a statement: “Ultimately, while I believe the intention was good and agree that pay transparency is important, the proposed policy would not yield the intended results.