As prominent MEPs are slamming US President Donald Trump's choice for ambassador to Brussels, RT’s Afshin Rattansi sat down with Ted Malloch for his personal views on the matter.
RT’s Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi spoke to Trump's pick for ambassador to the EU, Ted Malloch, former Deputy Chief of UN Economic Commission for Europe, and professor at Henley Business School in the UK.
RT: The EU parliament is somehow trying to veto your appointment as the next ambassador to the European Union. What is your reaction?
Ted Malloch: They must not have got the notice that Donald Trump won the American election. Of course, ambassadors are chosen by their home countries to represent those countries and those national interests in foreign capitals, in this case, in Brussels.
RT: Is it symptomatic of the fact that European politicians don’t really understand their power relations with Washington?
TM: I think there is some sense of that. But there is also an inkling, particularly in some leftist political circles in Europe, to wish Trump away or to think that in four years they might have Obama back or basically to call me things like ‘malevolent’ which actually requires a theory of ‘good and evil,’ which they don’t have.
RT: How out of touch are elites continuing to be in European capitals and the MSM when it comes to Trump?
TM: I don’t think it is just Europe. It is certainly the case around the world. The Davos Man is dead. We had the Davos World Economic Forum the other week and of course they had a lot of has-beens there. The keynote speakers were all people who were leaving office, for example, US Secretary of State John Kerry. Xi Jinping was their poster boy for globalization, and in effect, China has been a beneficiary of globalization. The 300 million jobs that were created in China was a significant economic fact, but lots of those jobs were taken out of the hallowed places of Western Europe and Middle America.
RT: In the diplomatic world, Britain’s ambassador to Washington, Sir Kim Darroch, believes that “Trump inexperience will be able to be exploited by the UK.” Wise for Britain to have a diplomat there that thinks like that?
TM: Good luck. Of course, facetiously, Donald Trump suggested that someone else be the ambassador to the UK, obviously that didn’t come to fruition and wasn’t going to happen. Everyone underestimated Donald Trump this entire past year and a half. Seventeen political candidates and Republican primaries, Hillary Clinton, the most experienced, seasoned pro in American politics – what happened to all of them?
Watch the full interview on Going Underground on Saturday.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.