Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd says Donald Trump is walking a potentially dangerous path with China and Europe on trade, but praised the US president for his "shake the tree and see what falls out" strategy with North Korea.
Mr Rudd, speaking on US financial TV network CNBC on Monday, said Mr Trump's stiff tariffs targeting China and Europe risked leaving America isolated.
He believes weekend trade talks in Beijing between US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He ended "pretty badly looking at the content of the Chinese releases".
"My friends in Beijing say we are actually starting to get to a dangerous zone in the possibility of effectively resolving that one with the Chinese, so I think there is some real warning signals with that one," Mr Rudd said.
Mr Trump could also receive a frosty reception from European leaders when he attends the G7 summit later this week in Canada, after the president last week announced stiff tariffs on European Union steel and aluminium.
"The danger diplomatically for the United States at the moment is you start to carve yourself off from the Europeans and the Chinese simultaneously," Mr Rudd said.
"There's a G7 meeting coming up in Canada this week and the French are already referring to this now as a G6 plus one.
"Their statements, before it started, was basically the Americans are right off the reservation here."
Mr Rudd praised Mr Trump for his North Korean denuclearisation strategy, which led to next week's summit with the rogue nation's leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore.
"The strategy is shake the tree and see what falls out of it in terms of what concrete measures the North Koreans may be willing to agree to, and then make a decision about whether you can live with it," Mr Rudd, president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, said.
"So against the alternative, which is us careening in the direction of conflict, I give the president a reasonable pass mark on this one."
