Donald Trump could "jeopardise the future of Nato, and might even start a major war", a former US Secretary of Labor has claimed.

Robert Reich, who served in the administrations of Presidents Ford, Carter and Clinton, accused the US leader of being “utterly ignorant” about world affairs which he claims could jeopardise the organisation’s existence.

In a lengthy tweet he said Mr Trump has “almost complete control over foreign policy, has installed Steve Bannon as a principal on the National Security Council, and is utterly ignorant about the rest of the world."

As a result, he said that the US leader could "jeopardise the future of Nato, and might even start a major war."

Mr Bannon was previously Mr Trump’s chief political strategist and head of right-wing Breibart News before his controversial elevation to the National Security Council, where he advises Mr Trump on matters of national security.

Before taking on his new role, Mr Bannon predicted the US and China would go to war “within the next ten years” over the South China Sea dispute.

He has also warned that Christianity around the world is under threat from radical Islam.

Professor Reich claimed that Mr Trump was stuffing his cabinet with people who will do his bidding and repeal laws that protect ordinary Americans, while a Republican-controlled Congress could waive through his plans for military expansion.

He named Justice Secretary Jeff Sessions, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Environment Secretary Scott Pruitt as individuals he believes will “fail to enforce laws that should be enforced, and put in place new laws and regulations that hurt average people and the poor”.

The commentator and author of several books, who now serves as the chancellor's professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, also suggested that Mr Trump has almost total control of Congress and increasing influence over the judiciary, threatening the checks and balances that are supposed to operate in the US system of government.

“Republicans still control Congress and many are eager to do exactly what Trump wants to do with the federal budget," he wrote. "Expand the military and cut safety-net programs that low-income Americans depend on.”

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He accused Mr Trump of governing from “his bully pulpit” and predicted he will “continue to tell big lies and unleash hatefulness and bigotry across the land.”

The academic warned that because Mr Trump has the power to install at least one more Supreme Court justice, he could “tip the Court in a more conservative direction for years if not a generation”.

Professor Reich, who Time magazine named as one of the ten best cabinet members of the last century, is a frequent and vocal critic of the President and has previously branded him “incompetent” and “a liar”. He has also suggested Mr Trump may be a “traitor” because of his alleged links to Russia.