When you walk away it's difficult to come back

So Donald Trump walked out of his second summit with Kim Jong-un, ended the meeting prematurely and cancelled a planned lunch. It all sounds tough stuff, the Big Man refusing to kowtow to the short fat bloke. But when you walk out of a meeting because you are not getting what you want, it just makes it more difficult to get back in the room again at a later date. It's not like the classic carpet-seller routine when a would-be buyer walks out of the shop unwilling pay the price offered and is half way down the street when the carpet seller comes running out and shouting "Ok ok you can have the carpet at your price". When Trump walked out, Kim Jong-un made no attempt to call him back in, let alone shout out, "Ok ok you can have my nukes!". The question now is, not what went wrong with all the pre-summit planning, but what happens next. If Kim demanded a total lifting of sanctions before even considering removing some of his nuclear installations, what will persuade him or Trump to come back for a third summit? It's a Catch-22 situation. Trump wants all of Kim's nukes dismantled. Kim wants all sanctions lifted. Unless there is a bit of give and take on both sides, there is unlikely to be any deal at all in the future. The looks on the faces of both leaders summed up the problem. They claim to like each other, but the solemn downbeat expressions made it clear friendship is not going to be enough. Kim has spent too much of his country's income on building a nuclear arsenal to give it all up just because the leader of the free world asks him to do so. On the assumption that Kim is never going to give up ALL his nukes but might give up, say, half of them, is this ever going to be enough for Trump or some future US president to agree to lift, say, half the economic sanctions. That would normally be the half-way stage of any serious negotiations. But this is different from most negotiations because it's about nuclear weapons that threaten world peace. Trump can hardly say, in private or especially in public, "Ok Kim, I'll allow you to keep 20 nuclear warheads and three nuclear installations and eight ballistic missiles, and in return I'll help you build your economy." North Korea would eventually thrive as an economy but would still be a nuclear power. In the nuclear game it has to be all or nothing. That's why Trump walked out. And that's why it's going to be so difficult for Trump and Kim to get back into a room together. It doesn't bode well.