U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is at risk of botching the transatlantic alliance that has served the interests of the Western democracies since the end of World War II, the outgoing American ambassador to the EU warned Friday.

In an unusually frank conversation with reporters, the ambassador, Anthony Gardner, said Trump and his team should not rely on advice from former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, calling the Brexit champion a “fringe voice,” and saying the incoming administration should stop expecting the European Union to fall apart.

“I can’t hide a sense of concern,” Gardner said, before issuing a pointed warning to the incoming administration against trying to sideline the EU and its institutions in favor of direct relationships “with our perceived best friends like the U.K. and Germany … on the false assumption, which may be held by some, that the EU is a dysfunctional group of countries that don’t deliver and don’t deliver particularly for the United States.”

“For 50 years, on a bipartisan basis, United States policy has been to support European integration — and for a very good reason,” Gardner said. “It’s not only good for Europe, it has been good for the United States — for political, economic, and security reasons.”

Gardner, like other politically appointed envoys, was ordered by the new administration to vacate his post before the January 20 inauguration. And at the outset of his remarks on Friday, Gardner said he was looking forward to being able to speak his mind without diplomatic constraints and that he planned to serve as a sort of shadow ambassador, pushing a pro-EU message.

“I might as well go out in a ball of flames,” Gardner said, adding: “I have not been shy and I will not be shy in the next few years to continue to make the case.”

Preserving the transatlantic relationship

Gardner, who worked on European affairs on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, has spent most of his career working as a lawyer and financial executive, mainly based in London. He was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2014 and arrived in Brussels at a time of tension over Edward Snowden's disclosures that the U.S. intelligence services had been eavesdropping on European allies, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Gardner said he was urging anxious European colleagues to continue making an aggressive case for the EU but to shift their rhetoric into a heavily pro-business message. His advice suggested that Trump’s view of himself as a corporate executive and dealmaker was already forcing longtime diplomats and policymakers to rethink their approach to relations with Washington.

“We should not depart from 50 years of foreign policy with regard to the EU, and we should not become cheerleaders for Brexit" — Anthony Gardner

Gardner said he was troubled that Trump transition officials in a phone call to the EU leadership had asked one question: which country would be next to follow the U.K. out the door? He said the Trump team’s seeming appreciation for Brexit was deeply misguided and he cautioned that relying on Farage for advice was a mistake.

“We should not depart from 50 years of foreign policy with regard to the EU, and we should not become cheerleaders for Brexit — particularly a Brexit that appears more likely to be a hard, disorderly, unmanaged Brexit,” Gardner said. “That would be, in my view, absolute folly. And U.S. business understands this very well.

"U.S. business has been a cheerleader for the integration project for many, many, many years for a very simple reason: the single market has been extremely positive for them. A hard Brexit or a fragmentation of the European market would be very bad news for American business.”

Gardner repeatedly chided the president-elect and his top lieutenants for creating a sense that they expected, or perhaps even wanted, the EU to fail.

“The perceived idea among some is that 2017 is the year in which the EU is going to fall apart,” Gardner said, adding: “And this mission is going to play a critical role in saying that’s inaccurate."

He said the EU is "delivering" on energy, data and digital, protection of external borders and countering violent extremism. "We know the list," he said. "And we have to make sure that — and the media is going to play an important role — explain to the new team how the EU is still delivering.”

Battle over values

Gardner also said he expected Europe would have to take on a larger role in the defense of Western values.

“Never before will the weight of history be so heavy on the shoulders of Europe to carry the flame of democracy, human rights and the values that have guided the transatlantic partnership for decades," he said. "And that weight of history is not only the shoulders of Germany but also on all European countries and on the shoulders of the EU institutions.”

He continued: “I just hope that they are the guardians of that flame because nothing can be taken for granted right now. The violence of our political discourse, the vulgarity of our political discourse … things that were unacceptable a few years ago are now acceptable. I find it profoundly shocking that xenophobia, racism, homophobia ... are now considered to be acceptable.”

In his remarks Gardner ticked off a long list of achievements including the landmark “privacy shield” agreement with the EU that protects personal data and puts a restriction on “indiscriminate mass surveillance” by the U.S. government of personal data transferred to the U.S. The accord also created a redress mechanism through an ombudsman’s office at the State Department.

He cited the failure to complete a landmark trade deal, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, as his biggest regret, and that he had hoped to serve at least one more year as the ambassador.

On Russia, Gardner spoke forcefully in favor of maintaining the tough sanctions that the EU and U.S. have imposed in response to the annexation of Crimea and the Kremlin’s military intervention in eastern Ukraine. He said he was fearful the Trump administration would ease up on Russia.

“Clearly, there are risks of this façade fragmenting,” he said. “Particularly given what has emerged recently in terms of now-acknowledged Russian actions in interfering and meddling in our internal political system and campaign, it would be for me inconceivable and shameful if we were to consider lightening sanctions on Russia.”

Advice for those left behind

In describing his hopes for American diplomats remaining in Brussels, Gardner echoed the message of Ivan Rogers, the former British ambassador to the EU, who resigned abruptly this month in clear disagreement with London over the handling of Brexit. Rogers urged his staff to “speak truth to power” and Gardner did the same.

“It’s critically important that while being loyal to the new team, which is absolutely right and appropriate in a democratic system, that people speak truth to power,” Gardner said. “Don’t be shy in sometimes saying what you believe in.”

Gardner said he had never met Farage but said that Farage had recently asked for a meeting in a letter Gardner described as weirdly supplicative.

“Nigel Farage said ‘your excellency, I hope that your excellency has time to meet me and it will be a fruitful meeting with your excellency,’” Gardner said. “It was like six excellencies in there.”

Gardner criticized the president-elect for his anti-immigrant rhetoric, saying: “We are a country which should be explaining to the world the great opportunities of being a country of immigrants.”

He also praised Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry for making an eloquent defense of the EU, that he said offered a better case than Europeans have made.

Citing a speech by Kerry in Brussels, Gardner said, “Remember his last line was 'believe in yourselves as much as we believe in you.'”

After leaving his post next week, Gardner will become a visiting fellow at the College of Europe in Bruges and then will hold a similar position at the European University Institute in Italy before returning to work in the private sector in London in the fall.

“The EU — despite all of the issues that we live and we see every day living here, being here — is not about to fall apart,” he said.