Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images US may lure more countries out of EU, says likely Trump envoy Theodore Malloch argues that offering bilateral trade deals behind the EU’s back would be ‘ingenious.’

The U.S. could seek bilateral trade deals with European countries behind the back of “a certain bureaucratic organization called the European Union,” according to the man tipped to be Donald Trump’s ambassador in Brussels.

Any EU member country that struck such a deal would have to leave the bloc but Theodore Malloch, a university professor, implied that Trump would not be concerned about the diplomatic consequences. Asked on BBC Radio 4 about the political fallout, he chuckled: “You’re dealing with President Trump and clearly when it comes to foreign policy … He’s willing to turn the table over and do something quite different.”

“Mr. Trump has clearly said that any deals, with anyone frankly, in future will be done on a bilateral basis,” Malloch said, reinforcing the view that the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal between the EU and U.S. is dead in the water.

In a joint interview with the Times and Bild published Sunday, Trump spoke about the EU in far from warm terms, saying that the bloc is a “vehicle for Germany” and that the U.K. was “smart in getting out.”

“People, countries, want their own identity and the U.K. wanted its own identity … I believe others will leave [the EU]. I do think keeping it together is not gonna be as easy as a lot of people think,” Trump added, indicating that he was keen to do a quick trade deal with the U.K. post-Brexit.

Malloch is an advocate of such bilateral deals. “I think the idea of offering such a deal, again negotiated on a bilateral basis, to other European countries is an ingenious one and it also circumvents a certain bureaucratic organization called the European Union,” he said.

Asked if the president-elect was actively keen for other countries to follow the Brexit example, Malloch said: “You read the interview, I think it’s between the lines but on their own accord there are at least three or four, maybe more, European countries who would like to have a referendum and we’ll see what their populations say.”

Malloch praised U.K. Chancellor Phillip Hammond for indicating on Sunday that the U.K. would be prepared to shift to a “competitively engaged,” low-tax economic model to undercut its European neighbors if it didn't get the market access it wanted from Brexit negotiations.

Theresa May is due to stake out her position in a major speech in London on Tuesday but briefings to the British press over the weekend suggested that she intends to leave the single market and the customs union.

“[The U.K. economy] could be more Singaporean in terms of its orientation, entrepreneurial, free-trade orientated. I don’t think these are bad things,” said Malloch.

“The world geopolitical economy is changing … The pendulum is swinging in the direction of Mr. Trump,” he said.