Fear of elites and globalisation fuelled Brexit and Trump votes - Obama

US president Barack Obama has said fears of globalisation and suspicions of government institutions and elites powered both the UK's vote to exit the European Union and Donald Trump's election as the next US president.

“Globalisation combined with technology, combined with social media and constant information, has disrupted people’s lives” in both concrete and psychological ways, Mr Obama said at a news conference on Tuesday in Athens with Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras.

"There's no doubt that has produced populist movements both on the left and the right in many countries in Europe.The success of both Donald Trump and Democrat Bernie Sanders in the US elections also reflected populist movements," he said.

Ethnic identity

“Sometimes that gets wrapped up in issues of ethnic identity or religious identity or cultural identity,” he said. “That can be a volatile mix.”

For the second time in two days, Mr Obama found himself trying to explain Mr Trump’s surprise win in the November 8th presidential election, where the Republican defeated Mr Obama’s preferred successor, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

The president has begun a week-long tour of Greece, Germany and Peru, his last foreign trip while in office, and he faces a string of foreign leaders demanding to know how a man he once promised would never be president is now poised to lead the free world.

“Did I recognise there was anger and frustration in the American population? Of course I did,” Mr Obama said in answer to a question about whether he saw parallels between Mr Trump’s election and Brexit.

He noted a “mismatch” between his own popularity - his approval rating has been well north of 50 per cent for most of the year - and the election outcome.

‘Shake things up’

American voters may have decided they “just need to shake things up”, he said.

The lesson of the election, he said, is that “we have to deal with issues like inequality. We have to deal with economic dislocation.”

The vote on June 23rd in the UK to exit the EU had shocked political observers and defied warnings by British establishment politicians, foreign leaders and global financial institutions.

During the US presidential campaign, Mr Trump predicted his victory would be the equivalent of “Brexit plus”.

Ukip acting leader Nigel Farage, an architect of the Brexit vote, was an adviser to Mr Trump and has said the two victories share a common revolutionary thread.

Bloomberg