‘Trump the Peacemaker’ is an unlikely title – but ending the Korean War would be an indisputable coup

No one, though, should get too impatient. As the US president commented, he and Kim Jong-un are ‘not looking for speed’

It may only have been a spur of the moment photo op – but what a photo op it turned out to be. The spectacle of an American president crossing the Korean demarcation line with the leader of the last Stalinist state on earth is an arresting one. Many ordinary North Korean asylum seekers have been shot dead trying to cross that border. And hundreds of South Korean, North Korean and American soldiers have perished in the various skirmishes that have flared up in its near 70-year history. Bill Clinton called the DMZ the “scariest place on earth”. Now it is symbolically one of the most reassuring and hopeful. It appears peace and some sort of unity might return to the Korean peninsula after well over a century of subjugation, wars and division. It is a historic moment.

No one, though, should get too impatient. As Mr Trump commented, he and Kim Jong-un are “not looking for speed. We’re looking to get it right.” With an invite personally delivered by the president, Mr Kim will become the first of his dynasty to visit the White House when the painstaking diplomatic negotiations are complete. It might be that the two men, together with the South Korean leadership and the United Nations, will be ready to sign the peace treaty to end the Korean War that has been in abeyance since the end of formal hostilities in 1953. The truce will at last be turned into a more stable lasting peace. It could be done by the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, next June, nicely timed for the run-up to November’s presidential election. “Trump the Peacemaker” sounds an unlikely title, given his blunders in the Middle East, but ending the Korean War would be an indisputable coup.

None of this would be happening had North Korea not acquired its nuclear weapons. The failure to prevent that is a long-term one where many of President Trump’s predecessors bear their share of the blame. It is now probably helpful that the Chinese appear willing to exert what modest influence they have on their awkward ally and neighbour in Pyongyang. Their leverage in turn is increased by the tough US economic sanctions on North Korea. Taken together, the pressures on all sides to talk and make peace have become irresistible. Now that Mr Trump has tacitly dropped demands for regime change, Mr Kim feels sufficiently confident to allow the historic enemy to be invited on to his soil.

It is tempting to imagine something of the same happening with that other member of George W Bush’s old axis of evil – Iran. It is more difficult to imagine Mr Trump and the ayatollahs shaking hands, strolling around their respective capitals, sightseeing and making small talk. And yet, even with the warlike rhetoric, hostages such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, vicious US sanctions and Tehran’s renewed nuclear programme, some hopeful signs can be discerned.

President Trump offers talks via Twitter. Iran’s economy is being broken by American sanctions, acutely painful for its population and also its leaders. Yet neither side seems ready to escalate the recent drone and tanker incidents. Neither wants a devastating regional war in the Middle East drawing in Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia and Turkey. Both would wish to remove the threats to the security of their own assets and interests. Both know the proxy war in Yemen with Saudi Arabia and the UAE could run way out of control.

Although he has been a disaster in many ways, Mr Trump might yet surprise us again with his unconventional personal diplomacy. He could start by telling his national security adviser, John Bolton, to stop taking about regime change in Tehran. It’s not the Trump way of making friends and doing business, as Mr Kim can testify. Via back channels in Oman, Trump the Peacemaker may be at work even now. We can but hope.