Donald Trump's likely pick for EU Ambassador says euro 'could collapse'

Ted Malloch, a businessman and strident Brexiteer, said that he would 'short the euro'

Euro 'could fail', says man tipped as US ambassador to EU (Getty Images)

US President Donald Trump’s likely pick for ambassador to the European Union has said that the single currency “could collapse” in the next year and a half.

Speaking to the BBC on Wednesday, Ted Malloch, a businessman and strident Brexiteer, said that he would “short the euro”—terminology used by investment professionals when they take a position betting that an asset will decrease in value.

He also said that it would be best for the US if Britain carried out a “clean” break with the trading bloc.

Mr Malloch, a professor at Henley Business School who once worked at the now defunct Salomon Brothers investment said, said that after Brexit, the UK would be able to bypass “the bureaucrats of Brussels”.

Any attempt by the EU to block Britain beginning talks with the US around a possible trade deal would be like a husband "trying to stop his wife having an affair", he said.

In Mr Trump’s first interview with the British press ahead of last week’s inauguration, the President said Brexit was "a great thing" and predicted that other states would follow the UK in exiting the group.

“I believe others will leave. I do think keeping it together is not gonna be as easy as a lot of people think,” Mr Trump told former Justice Minister Michael Gove in an interview for The Times.

Earlier this month, when pushed as to whether he thought it a "good thing" for European states to leave the bloc, Mr Malloch did not directly answer the question, but concluded: "The world economy is changing [...] The pendulum is swinging in the direction of Mr Trump."

Prime Minister Theresa May is due to meet with Mr Trump on Friday in the Oval Office.