Tim Newark speaks exclusively to Ted Malloch, American businessman, academic and Anglophile who was a close associate of Donald Trump throughout his presidential campaign and is widely tipped for a senior job from the new President. Theodore Roosevelt Malloch is a hot favourite to be Donald Trump’s man in London. Professor of Strategic Leadership and Governance at the Henley Business School, his illustrious career in business and academia on both sides of the Atlantic, alongside his support for Trump since his campaign began last year, makes him a strong contender to take the post of US Ambassador to the UK. A distant relative of the great US President Roosevelt, hence his splendid forenames, Malloch nailed his colours to the Trump mast early on in December 2015 with an article for Forbes in which he compared Trump to the swaggering, Panama Canal-building President. They share the same ability to reach beyond traditional Republicans and grab the attention of blue-collar voters. “Trump is indeed the new Roosevelt,” he argued. “For America to survive and flourish we need his action and determinism, his enthusiasm and will to succeed.” If the 62-year-old Trump insider is indeed rewarded with a posting to London, it will be very good news for Britain and Brexit. “Our mutual and abiding interests, common world view, congruence of sympathies and the undeniably unique heritage of the Anglo-American tradition of liberty should be our true future together,” says Malloch. “In my view with a shared Whig history, the King James Bible, the Anglican Church, long historical memory — all of these things make up a valuable Anglo-Atlanticist patrimony. Britain and America belong together, not in Europe.” Malloch marvels at the notion of Americans being asked to join the EU. “Would they want the United States to join anything like the EU — a federal superstate that curtails sovereignty? Of course the answer is NO! We wouldn’t want that in any way, shape or form. And the British already decided not to become part of the flawed euro currency and the European Central Bank. So here’s an interesting and novel alternative no pundit is yet suggesting, and I say it only half facetiously: why not hook up our horses together?” He has joked in the past about Britain becoming the 51st state, but it certainly underlines his commitment to the Special Relationship. “Lady Thatcher notably declared: ‘The Anglo-American relationship has done more for the defence and future of freedom than any other alliance in the world’. I would help to make that possible again in this uncertain 21st century.” And the bust of Churchill, removed by Obama, most certainly goes back in the Oval Office. Born and brought up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ted Malloch was the son of a Patrol Torpedo boat crewman serving in the Pacific campaign during the Second World War. As a former Yale and Oxford Professor, he has written fourteen books commenting on American culture, religious freedom and the virtue of thrift. His latest book is his memoir, entitled Davos, Aspen & Yale: My Life Behind the Elite Curtain as a Global Sherpa. It was Lady Thatcher who dubbed him a ‘global Sherpa’ during the 1992 CNN World Economic Development Conference in Washington DC. He has already served at an ambassadorial level within the UN when he was appointed Executive Secretary UNECE (UN Economic Commission for Europe) in Geneva. He was a Professor and Senior fellow at the Said Business School in Oxford and advises many international think tanks, including the Hudson Institute. His time spent among the global elite has given him a ringside view of the upper echelons of the EU. “The elite that dominates EU decision-making is managerial, bureaucratic and socialist,” he says, “with a view to higher taxation and redistribution of wealth — all qualities the EU elite tout proudly, despite growing populist sentiment among an increasingly economically pressed middle class in virtually every EU-participating country. The US and the UK have cast their lot in the same direction and the Anglosphere will not only survive but thrive.” Regarding Trump’s controversial campaign pledges to abandon the free trade deals supported by Obama and Clinton, Malloch believes a more pragmatic President Trump will prevail. “Trump is a free trader by instinct, and as he has stated he has no plan to return to the failed Smoot-Hawley plan of the 1930s, rest assured,” says Malloch, referring to the protectionist act that raised over 20,000 tariffs on imported goods in 1930. “The economic reality is that tariffs usually don’t work,” says Malloch. “Countries retaliate and all parties lose in a trade war. So what realistically can be done by Trump on trade? On the supply side, the US must constantly get more competitive. This includes more research and development, constant innovation, advanced technological manufacturing, improved access to capital, renewed skills training and benchmarking. A pro-growth environment, if earnestly followed by Trump, will lead to prosperity and rising standards of living and increased wages for all Americans. The same can be argued for Great Britain.” If that will meet the expectations of Trump’s rust-belt voters, who want to see jobs returned from abroad and factories re-opened, remains to be seen, but Malloch is certainly an authoritative economic voice who can bring his wisdom to bear on many of Trump’s closest advisors. Since Trump began his campaign, Malloch has not wavered in his support for the charismatic tycoon and may well be rewarded with a prominent role in the country he loves second only to his native US. We can only but hope so. For him, it’s been a great year so far — “2016 is a watershed and a year of reasserted independence.”