EDITORIAL: Donald Trump deserves credit for the outcome of his second summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un despite the lack of anything to show for it on paper. Trump counts it as progress that they are continuing to meet amicably and he is right. He has been expressing his regard for Chairman Kim with his usual rhetorical excess but in this case superlatives do no harm.
It has made a welcome change from the sinister image the West has long had of North Korea and its strange ruling dynasty, rarely seen before this US President defied conventional diplomatic bargaining and gave the regime last year's top-level meeting in Singapore without preconditions.
The "optics" of the two leaders walking and talking together in Hanoi before their second meeting on Thursday, and the fact that Kim had a press conference afterwards — possibly the first time any of the Kims has invited questions from Western reporters — speaks louder than anything either man said.
But what they did say sounds promising. According to Trump, their talks reached an impasse when Kim would not make a better offer on "denuclearisation" unless the US ended all economic sanctions on his country. "Sometimes you have to walk," said Trump, suggesting it was just a tactical move on his part. Lest anyone think the impasse was serious, he added, "I'd rather do it right than do it fast...We're in a position to do something very special".
The American side wants North Korea to dismantle its entire nuclear arsenal in return for the lifting of sanctions. That is probably unrealistic. So is the American notion that "denuclearisation" refers only to North Korea. The written agreement reached at Singapore referred to the "denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula". At his Hanoi press conference, Kim was asked whether he was read to "denuclearise" and replied, "If I'm not willing to do that I won't be here right now".