A strident Brexiteer tipped as the leading candidate to become Donald Trump's new ambassador to the EU has claimed America can become Britain’s ‘rich uncle’ during Brexit negotiations.

Professor Ted Malloch, who was interviewed by the President-elect's transition team at Trump Tower earlier this month, said if he gets the job he will advise the billionaire businessman to offer the UK a 'game-changing' trade deal with America.

Mr Malloch, who said he had been told he was the leading candidate for the role, believes a US-UK trade deal would bolster Britain’s strength during Brussels talks.

‘Trump is very pro-European but he is not well disposed towards the European Union or other supranational organisations - particularly one that is encumbered by bureaucracy,’ Mr Malloch told The Times.

Prof Malloch, pictured on BBC Newsnight last year, said Mr Trump believed the Brexit vote was a 'wise' decision by the British people

Expanding on his proposal for a bilateral UK-US trade deal he said: ‘I will argue for that. It would change the game. It would help the British enormously. It gives you a rich uncle.

‘It also gives you a strong trading partner with another enormous market. It reinforces the whole English-speaking anglosphere which the Europeans are certainly aware of.’

Mr Malloch also revealed that despite what the UK government wants, ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage has easy access to Trump.

The academic, who was recommended for the US envoy job by Farage, first said he was confident that Britain would move to the front of the queue for a trade deal with the US in an interview with The Mail on Sunday last week.

Nigel Farage was first spotted at Trump Tower when he became the first British politician to meet the new President-elect in November

US President-elect Donald Trump (C) and US television host Steve Harvey (R) are seen in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York this week as he holds transition meetings

Asked whether he had a message for any so-called 'Bremoaners', the 64-year-old declared: 'Stop moaning, get on the Brexit train.'

Mr Malloch told The Mail on Sunday: 'I've been told that there's nobody else they're really talking to but I have not been offered the role.

'That is something they announce, not something I announce.'

Mr Malloch lives in the UK and works at the Henley Business School.

On Friday, officials from Trump's transition team asked the EU leadership which country will be the next to follow Britain through the exit door.

Anthony Gardner, the outgoing US ambassador to the EU, said the President-elect thinks the Brussels club is 'falling apart'.

He revealed that in a phone call with the EU leadership, a member of Mr Trump's transition team discussed Britain's vote to leave the EU in June last year and asked: 'Who's next?'

Mr Gardner, appointed by EU enthusiast Barack Obama who will leave his post as Washington's man in Brussels next week when Trump enters the White House, said the question was 'reflective of the perception' of the EU among the incoming administration.

He blamed Farage who Trump nicknamed 'Mr Brexit,' for spreading a Eurosceptic feeling in Washington.

President Barack Obama is pictured meeting with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington in November

EU enthusiast Barack Obama will leave his post as Washington's man in Brussels next week when Trump enters the White House

Unlike UK diplomats, US Ambassadors are political appointments. Trump has said all ambassadors will be out of their jobs on transition day next Friday - defying the convention that they stay on temporarily while replacements are made.

The departing ambassador blasted Trump's attitude towards Brussels, telling reporters: 'For us to be encouraging Brexit is the height of folly.'

Mr Gardner refused to name the officials on either end of the phone call, nor the EU institution they were talking to.

Pressed on the phone call between the Trump transition team and the EU, he said: 'That was the one question that was asked. It's reflective. This is reflective of the general perception of the EU and it's a misperception.

'It's a perception that Nigel Farage is presumably, you know, disseminating in Washington. And it's a caricature.'

Mr Gardiner said Brussels was well aware of Trump's anti-EU stance.

'It's not a surprise, right,' he said. 'That's what is the mentality of this team: this thing is falling apart. Who's next?'

Although he will be stepping aside from his post as US ambassador to the EU next week, Mr Gardiner said he hopes to stay in Europe by taking up a diplomatic post elsewhere on the continent.

He promised to continue speaking out in favour of the importance of US-EU relations, saying: 'I might as well go out in a ball of flames.'