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All over Europe and in the corridors of NATO,

policymakers are discussing the implications for the continent

of the Trump victory in the US presidential election.

For 70 years, the alliance with America

has been the foundation stone of European defence.

The question now is whether that alliance can be maintained,

if so, on what terms, and if not, what then?

So how worried should we be with a new but not quite new man in the White House?

Step into the briefing room and together we'll find out.

Let's start by reminding ourselves of how things went last time Donald Trump was in office.

Here with me is Heather Connolly a senior advisor to the Board of Trustees of the Think

Tank, the German Marshall Fund. She's down the line from Washington, D.C. Heather Connolly,

when Donald Trump first campaign for president back in 2016, what at that point was he saying

about NATO and European security, if anything? Well, I think President-elect Trump has always been very consistent.

You can even go back to the 1980s.

He saw America's allies as taking advantage of a weak America, whether that was in trade,

whether that was in defense, that the ally was getting the good deal and the United States was getting ripped

off. And of course, presidents have been saying that for decades. You can go back to Dwight

Eisenhower and asking European allies to pay 4% of their GDP on defense spending. But for the

first time, Donald Trump made the explicit threat. The United States would withdraw from NATO

if NATO allies did not put their fair share in.

...