Will Trump and Kim Jong-un actually do something special this time?

Already expectations for the next planned summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un in Hanoi at the end of this month are being lowered by the White House, indicating that the second love-in between the two leaders is not going to be much more than that, a love-in. Despite all the optimism when this rapprochement with North Korea began under the Trump administration, there has been little progress. Plenty of diplomatic progress of course because the US is talking to North Korea and North Korea is talking to South Korea. But actual changes on the ground as far as North Korea's nuclear weapons programme have been few and far between. The odd missile site here and there, but Pyongyang, by all accounts, is continuing with its ballistic missile programme and has its nuclear warheads all nicely stored away, untouched by outside inspectors. But then the sceptics, and I was and am one of them, never really thought that Kim Jong-un would just hand over his nuclear warheads. Even after Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, way back said he had a timeline worked out for the elimination of all the nuclear stuff. Timelines have come and gone and clearly despite the hullabaloo about Trump and Kim meeting again, there seem to be no prospects of North Korea surrendering anything unless Trump says he will start lifting economic and trade sanctions against the country. It's the usual game. If Trump gives away too much and then gets nothing in return, of if Kim hands over the odd nuclear warhead but Trump refuses to budge on sanctions, then it will all be over very quickly. It's not quite poker, it's more Russian roulette. The only really positive development is that North Korea hasn't carried out a single ballistic missile test launch, nor a nuclear test since the talks began. When you remember the massively publicised test of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the US, carried out in 2017, and the nuclear test the same year, that sort of dangerous brinkmanship was hurling us to a US war with North Korea. Those days, hopefully, are over. But what if the Trump summit with Kim in Hanoi all goes wrong? What if Kim is reaching boiling point and is expecting something generous from Trump in return for making a first step towards denuclearisation? For Trump it's absolutely vital for his presidency that Hanoi produces results. He needs to demonstrate that he can make the sort of breakthrough which no other political leader could achieve. In his mind, that would put people like Nancy Pelosi and all the Democratic candidates lining up to take his job back in their box. But the omens are not good.