Cecilia Malmstrom, who has served as European Commissioner for Trade since 2014, claimed that the actions of the Trump administration like the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership played a huge role in the ongoing decline of the country’s role in international trade.
At the same time, the commissioner pointed out, the EU has moved in to fill the resulting vacuum as "many countries are turning to Europe for leadership and for partnership."
"With other countries we are now setting the standards and that is also why it is bad for the US to withdraw because there are standards set now and they will be global," she said.
"We want American leadership in the world. They shouldn’t disengage," Malmstrom declared.
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Earlier, Singapore’s BullionStar precious metals expert Ronan Manly also warned that the vast gold reserves amassed by Russia and China may be a part of a strategy aimed at moving away from international trade denominated in US dollars.
"If China and Russia combined showed that they held more gold on a combined basis than the US, this would, even symbolically, be a blow to the US dollar and to the position of the US in the global economy," Manly told RT.