EDITORIAL:
Donald Trump sits down with Kim Jong-Un in Hanoi tomorrow with much less fanfare than heralded their first meeting held last year in Singapore. The pressure was on the United States President at that time to demonstrate his self-proclaimed art of the deal.
In the event, Trump appeared to give away much more than he got in return. He agreed to halt US military exercises in South Korea and Chairman Kim committed North Korea to "work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula".
Since then the US is said to have "scaled down" military exercises on the peninsula but not halted them. North Korea has not conducted any further tests of nuclear weapons and missiles and has destroyed one testing facility. But Trump's Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has been unable to make progress towards an all-important verification procedure at several meetings in Pyongyang.
Heading to Hanoi, Trump sounded unconcerned about the lack of progress and confident that he has some sort of rapport with the young North Korean autocrat. US diplomats and its defence establishment were surprised and dismayed at Trump's concession on military exercises last time and they will anxious about what he might concede this time.