Update | Former top US envoy to China Gary Locke on Trump, trade and strategic mistrust

In an interview this week, former US ambassador to China Gary Locke expressed concerns about many aspects of US president-elect Donald Trump’s possible trade and foreign policies. He said Trump had “misimpressions” about China, as evidenced by his claims it was manipulating its currency. He also called on Trump to continue America’s pivot to Asia and to push ahead with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact. Locke also expressed concerns that the US might lose its leadership role or credibility when moralising with other countries because Trump had not set a good personal example with his treatment of different ethnic and religious groups.

This is an edited transcript of the interview:

Your thoughts on the election result?

I’ve always said it was going to be a very close election. I’ve always said that it was quite possible for her [Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton] to win the popular vote, to get more votes all across America than Donald Trump and still lose the election, because we have this funny system called the electoral college that gives so many votes to each state and then unfortunately it’s not based exactly on the popular vote. And I’ve long been saying there has been a group of people in America that are feeling very ignored by Democrats and Republicans. Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were capturing their excitement and their support. I was very disappointed. I was very much supporting Hillary Clinton. I think she would have made a much better president. She is much more qualified than Donald Trump. And she’s respected around the world. She has a history of getting things done with people of all different perspectives, different viewpoints and she has a track record of working with the Republicans to get things done. So I’m very nervous about the future with Donald Trump as president. But he is [going to be] our president and as Hillary Clinton and [US] President [Barack] Obama said we have to give him a chance. He is, after all, going to be our president and president of America, and we need to support him, we need to help him and we need to – I hope that he will try to unify our country.

What have been the reactions from the US business community and leaders with whom you now work as a consultant?