NEW YORK/LONDON ¨C Donald Trump doesn¡¯t embody Western values in the way that previous presidents such as John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama did, according to Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the U.S. who now heads the Munich Security Conference.

¡°We are losing that symbol of the West that used to be undisputed, the president of the U.S.,¡± Ischinger said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. ¡°I can¡¯t explain to my children that they should think of President Trump as the person that represents the values of dignity, of human freedom that the West stands for. That¡¯s a serious problem.¡±

Ischinger¡¯s comments come two days after the U.S. president gave his inaugural speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, during which he said that ¡°Rocket Man,¡± as he refers to North Korean President Kim Jong Un, was on a ¡°suicide mission¡± and that the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran was ¡°the worst deal ever¡± and should be revisited.

Ischinger said that he hopes Trump¡¯s comments were just ¡°hot air¡± and that any pullback from the nuclear pact would be a mistake and would make diplomatic efforts with North Korea more difficult.

¡°If the U.S. walks away from the Iran deal, this will be a major setback in various dimensions,¡± Ischinger said. ¡°It will be a major setback for the role and credibility of the U.S. in international politics.¡±

Despite a more complicated trans-Atlantic relationship, Ischinger said Europe will need to find a way to work with the U.S., given the outsized role Washington plays in international diplomacy.

¡°We need the U.S. presence in Europe,¡± he said. ¡°Even if we have serious rather fundamental disagreements, there¡¯s no alternative to close cooperation and I think we will simply need to do everything we can to work as closely as possible with the U.S.¡±