Trouble finds Trump on every side of the world
Branded a criminal by a former friend in Washington, then let down by his new friend Kim Jong Un in Vietnam, Donald Trump cut a lonely figure before returning home from North Korea nuclear talks yesterday.
The US president's usual fire was missing at a press conference marking the end of two days of negotiations to try and get Kim to give up nuclear weapons.
Trump made few of his customary quips and kept largely on topic, a far cry from the rambling, excited performance he put on after his first summit with Kim in Singapore last year.
This time he didn't even seem angry, just tired.
That, quite possibly, was in part due to having stayed up to watch his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen testify in Washington -- during Vietnam's night time hours -- that his old boss was a crook.
Trump lamented Congress' scheduling. "They could have made it two days later or next week, and it would have been even better. They would have had more time," he said bitterly.
Originally, the Kim summit in Hanoi seemed set to give Trump a chance to escape the Washington swamp.
Back home his pet project to build a wall on the Mexico border is embroiled in controversy and allegations of misconduct are mounting. But on the other side of the world, a chance to make history beckoned.
Trump heavily hyped the event, apparently believing that by sheer force of personality he can succeed where decades of diplomats have flopped, transforming North Korea from an isolated, nuclear-armed fortress state to Asian tiger and friend of the US.
He even let out that his name was being pushed for a Nobel Peace Prize.
By lunchtime yesterday, though, it was clear that Trump's bold gambit had failed for now. He and Kim couldn't even agree on enough to issue a joint declaration and the summit ended two hours early.
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