Trust Trump to snatch comedy from the jaws of victory. After a carefully choreographed summit, the US president threw a press conference, declared he hadn't slept for 25 hours and launched into an exhilarating dialogue about North Korea's potential for real estate. "They have great beaches," he noted, something he'd observed when watching them fire cannons into the ocean. "I said, 'Boy look at that view. Wouldn't that make a great condo?'"

U.S. President Donald Trump in Singapore. Credit:AP

It's a slightly mad thing to think, but as a local journalist said to me: "It takes a mad man to do what Trump has done." This attempt to build a new, permanent relationship with North Korea, based largely on the word of a dictator, is an unorthodox gamble, but it might pay off. It exploits well the needs and vanities of its main players.

It's important to remember that North Korea has only come to the table because it has decided it is ready and willing. Its nuclear programme has reached a point where it feels secure enough to play it as a bargaining chip, and so it was Kim Jong-un - desperate for investment in his isolated kingdom - who invited Mr Trump to meet, not the other way around. Mr Trump's radical move was to accept.