As deal-making goes, Donald Trump’s approach to negotiating with North Korea has resembled nothing so much as his purchase, in 1988, of New York’s Plaza Hotel: Rely on personal chemistry, ignore the advice of experts, neglect due diligence and then overpay for an investment that delivers no returns.

As with the Plaza, the result is about the same: a fiasco. Trump only avoided personal bankruptcy over the hotel thanks to the indulgence of his creditors. Who will bail out the United States — and at what price — for a bankrupt policy on the Korean Peninsula?

Vladimir Putin, maybe?

The Russian strongman certainly seemed to be angling for the role when he hosted Kim Jong-un at a summit in Vladivostok this week. “Kim himself asked me that I inform the U.S. side of his position about questions he has regarding what’s happening on the Korean Peninsula,” Putin said after the meeting, with about as much sincerity — and the same serpentine intent— as Kaa the python from “The Jungle Book.”

Russia is too cash-strapped to provide North Korea with much economic aid, which is what Kim badly needs now. But it already helps the North evade U.N. sanctions, and it can easily serve as Pyongyang’s protector on the Security Council, just as it does for Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime.