At their first summit, in August last year, the South Korean president, Lee Jae Myung, told Donald Trump: “If you, Mr President, become the peacemaker, then I will assist you as the pacemaker.”
The remark at the Oval Office captured the thrust of Lee’s approach to North Korea: dial down the military posturing and make repeated peace overtures to revive dialogue, even if they have been consistently rejected by Pyongyang largely over Seoul’s insistence on denuclearisation.
