People are too easily offended by Donald Trump's unusual communication style, a senior aide said Tuesday.
Anthony Scaramucci, a senior member of the president-elect's transition team, said people "don't need to run around like crazy" because of comments Trump has made about NATO, trade and the European Union.
"He is saying things that are... setting off alarm bells and people are setting their hair on fire and running around, and they really don't need to do that," Scaramucci said at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
"When he uses the word obsolete about NATO, everybody runs around and says 'oh he is gonna bust up NATO.' That's not what he is saying... NATO is working but there are things about it that need to change and there are parts of it that are... in the words of Trump, obsolete," he added.
German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier said Trump's comments on NATO caused "astonishment and agitation" in Europe. Trump's suggestion that more countries could follow Britain out of the EU also caused irritation. French President Francois Hollande said Europe did not need to be told what to do.
Scaramucci acknowledged that Trump is not necessarily communicating in a way the establishment likes, but he described his ability to connect with voters through social media and other channels as "genius."
"The people who voted for him find it refreshing," he said.
Related: Trump trade threats have CEOs running scared
The hedge fund manager, who will act as a liaison between Trump and the business community, also said that the president-elect's threat to impose tariffs on China does not mean the U.S. wants to start a trade war with the world's second biggest economy.
"The Chinese and the Americans have a common cause and we have to have a very strong bilateral relationship," he said. "I believe that the United States and the new administration doesn't want to have a trade war." Trump wanted fair and free trade, he added.
Scaramucci was not the only Trump aide seeking to put the president-elect's comments in context Tuesday.
Dow Chemical (DOW) CEO Andrew Liveris, who will head the American Manufacturing Council in Trump's administration, said that while "there's a lot that has to be done" in order to bring jobs back to the U.S., some of Trump's campaign promises should be only seen as rhetoric.
"What he wants, what he campaigned on, was to put manufacturing jobs back in the United States," he said at the World Economic Forum. "Some of the rhetoric out there I think you should leave in the world of rhetoric," he added.
