Maybe, maybe not

Trump let loose with a number of noteworthy comments during the point in his meeting with South Korean president Moon when the press was permitted its barrage of questions, on subjects ranging from the Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE to whether the summit with Kim would take place as scheduled on June 12 to what might be possible in terms of bringing North Korea into the world economy.

The overall effect was yet another demonstration of how the Very Stable Genius views the world - that is, in terms of deals. He alternated between obsequiousness ("North Korea has the chance to be a great country") and a willingness to walk away without hesitation.

He spelled this out in no uncertain terms:

You never know about deals. You go into deals that are 100 percent certain, it doesn't happen. You go into deals that have no chance, and it happens, and sometimes happens easily. 

I made a lot of deals. I know deals, I think, better than anybody knows deals. You never really know. And that's why I say it to you. But I will tell you, this [South Korean president Moon] is a good man and he is a very capable man. And I think South Korea is very lucky to have him. 

Donald Trump conducts this presidency like he's conducted his business career: completely devoid of emotional investment, certainly devoid of a core set of principles. It's the game - the art of the deal, if you will - that gets him off. He'd like to accomplish some kind of meaningful shift in North Korea's relations with the world, not for the result of enormously reduced danger of apocalypse for its own sake, but because reducing that danger would mean that he won.

But he's perfectly willing to walk away at any time, much as a hard bargainer on a car lot makes it clear to a salesman that the deal is nowhere near certain until the paperwork is signed.

I guess the Trumpists have a point when they say that it's the end result that counts, but I'm not sure a guy with such an odd and rudderless worldview is going to bring to the table everything that he could bring to get the results we all want to see.

But I guess that's what the actually principled members of his foreign-policy team are for. It looks like he's relying on them to a great degree to craft the actual position the US is going to present to North Korea. He's been told it's a winning position, and that's all he feels he needs to know. 

It's a whole new way of approaching the nation's deadly serious world-stage issues: gamesmanship instead of immutable principles. As the VSG says, we'll see how it goes.