Hanoi summit debacle: Peace deal trumped by 2020 election prospects

THERE was always the possibility that the Hanoi summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would collapse. Both had differing ideas what "denuclearisation" meant; neither side knew what the other was prepared to do to get a deal. Yet when Mr Trump decided to walk away, everyone evinced surprise, even shock, at the outcome.

To begin with, it is always the case that summits are highly choreographed events, with the leaders putting on a performance of talking and smiling and signing and slapping each other on the back. All the real work of negotiation is done by tough, plain-speaking envoys who hammer out the details of a deal well before the leaders go glad-handing before TV cameras. For Mr Trump, though, there's a problem with sticking with this traditional approach. He does not quite trust Washington's officialdom and he remains convinced that he is master of the art of making a deal.

Even so, Mr Trump might have signed some incremental memorandum of agreement had not domestic politics in Washington upstaged his show in Hanoi. Just as Mr Trump was getting down to his meeting, his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, in testimony before the US Congress, detailed some of the shady things he did to help Mr Trump win the 2016 presidential election, including payments to a porn star to buy her silence, and portrayed him overall as a "cheat" and a "conman". He also warned that if Mr Trump lost the 2020 bid for re-election, there might not be a peaceful transition of power.