The writer is an FT contributing editor

You could touch the relief in European capitals at Kamala Harris’s entry into the US presidential race. Sure, Joe Biden had been a good friend to the continent in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine. But Europe cannot be sentimental about these things. Didn’t the opinion polls say the 81-year-old was all but certain to lose the White House to Donald Trump? 

European views of the relationship with the US tend to oscillate between complacency and insecurity, interspersed with occasional bouts of resentment. For most of this year, the organising emotion has been the second of the three — fear that Trump would win and read the rites over the US security guarantee. The danger now is that Harris’s candidature has invited complacency back into the conversation.