Donald Trump has tweeted that Nigel Farage would do a “great job” as US ambassador, but Downing Street says: we’ve got one already, and he’s excellent
President-elect Donald Trump has said that the UK's Nigel Farage would make an excellent ambassador to the US, but Downing Street has hit back saying there is "no vacancy".
In a tweet overnight, Trump said:
Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016
A Downing Street spokesperson said: "There is no vacancy and we already have an excellent ambassador to the US."
Trump has previously praised Farage for his part in the EU referendum, and has crowned Farage "Mr Brexit".
And Farage has returned the favour, campaigning for Trump during the US election and meeting him immediately afterwards to congratulate the President-elect on his new role.
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Richard Whitman, associate fellow of the Europe Programme at Chatham House, said: “President-elect Trump’s tweeted suggestion that the UK might want to appoint Nigel Farage as Britain’s ambassador to Washington highlights the current unsettled condition of transatlantic relations.
"Ambassadorial appointments are normally a dry-as-dust routine business of state-to-state relations. Mr Trump has demonstrated his capacity to introduce complication into the most uncomplicated areas of international affairs.”
The President-elect made his first statement about policy in a video overnight, promising to take the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal. He also said he would be backing the production of American energy and stop the "job-killing" restrictions on the sector.
The TPP was agreed by 12 countries in 2015, but has not yet been ratified by the individual participants, including Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand.
Malcolm Turnbull, Australian prime minister, said: "There is very strong support among the other 11 parties to the TPP to ratify it and to seek to bring it into force. So Mr Trump and his new congress will have to make their own decisions in America's interest."
John Key, the prime minister of New Zealand said the United States "is not an island".
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"It can't just sit there and say it's not going to trade with the rest of the world, and at some point it will have to give some consideration to that," Key said.
Asian-Pacific leaders have been meeting in Peru and have said that even without Trump's agreement, they would continue to set up free trade deals.
Some pundits have said that the collapse of the deal would create a void in Asia, which China would move to fill.