Prof Patman, of the university politics department, was commenting at a campus "Round-table" discussion on "Brexit, Trump and the Rise of Post-Truth Populism".
Prof Patman pointed out that Mr Trump was a very wealthy man, and his proposed tax cuts would give greatest advantage to the wealthy.
"I don’t think this is a person who’s a huge victim of life".
Prof Patman also did not see him "doing too much" for people who were "not well off".
More than 40% of Britain’s current exports went to the European Union, and the impact of a proposed "hard Brexit" could prove highly damaging for British employees who depended on that work.
Part of the establishment of the British Conservative Party had been opposed to the EU and there was a hidden agenda in some circles to strip away the workplace protections provided for British employees under EU regulations, he said.
About 170 people packed the university’s Burns 2 lecture theatre to hear presentations from Prof Patman, Dr Jim Headley, also of the Otago department, Sir Michael Leigh, a Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and Associate Prof Jason Roy, of Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada.
Asked how long the "television show" known as the Trump presidency would last, Sir Michael said impeachment was "highly unlikely", given current US political realities.
But it was possible that Democrats could win control of the Senate through mid-term elections, posing a larger challenge to Mr Trump.
Sir Michael said that democracies needed to provide "much more recognition" — including through more training and further investment — for people who had "suffered" and been disadvantaged by globalisation.
He also warned against the "beggar thy neighbour" approach through punitive international tariff action, which had made life worse in the 1930s.
Prof Patman added that President Trump could face potential problems with commercial conflicts of interest, given he had been the first US presidential candidate for decades who had not released his tax returns.
Such conflicts, including over business interests in Russia, could come back to "bite" the president, he said.
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Is President Trump not doing the rising up for them? The vote is the only say citizens have, unless they 'barricades' the joint, heaven forfend. Anarchy is not conservative, and neither is Donald. Capitalism is a radical economic model, not conservative. To be preserved must be the Rule of Law and constitution. The current admin is not into that, I posit.