Feb 28 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump likened

the UK government's demand that Apple ( AAPL ) grant it access

to some user data as "something that you hear about with China,"

in an interview with The Spectator political magazine published

Friday.

Trump said that he had told British Prime Minister Keir

Starmer that he "can't do this", referring to the request for

access to data. The two met at the White House on Thursday for

the first time since the U.S. leader took office, discussing

Ukraine and negotiating a bilateral trade agreement.

"We actually told him (Starmer) ... that's incredible.

That's something, you know, that you hear about with China,"

Trump said in his first magazine interview of his second term

with the magazine's editor-at-large Ben Domenech.

The UK government and Apple ( AAPL ) did not immediately respond to

Reuters requests for comment.

Apple ( AAPL ) last week ended an advanced security encryption

feature for cloud data for UK users in an unprecedented response

to government demands for access to user data. A spokesperson

for Britain's Home Office had then declined to comment on

whether such an order had been issued.

In a letter dated February 25 to two U.S. lawmakers, Tulsi

Gabbard, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said the

U.S. is examining whether the UK government had violated the

CLOUD Act, which bars it from issuing demands for the data of

U.S. citizens and vice versa.

The Spectator, which is influential in Conservative circles

and was previously edited by former Prime Minister Boris

Johnson, was bought last year by British hedge fund founder Paul

Marshall.