Donald Trump’s friends are hanging out without him—and talking behind his back. Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un on Thursday held their first summit together in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, where the pair discussed, among other things, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. And while the Russian president assured that he was not there to subvert United States policy goals on the peninsula, the meeting alone appeared to be a message to Washington that if it won’t solve the region’s nuclear puzzle, there are other actors that can step in to do so.

“There are a number of reasons for the trip and one of them is to show the U.S. that they are not the only game in town," Tom Plant of the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank, told NBC News. “The U.S. will clearly be watching very closely for any outcomes.”

As was the case when Trump met Kim, not much in the way of substance appears to have occurred during the the North Korean leader’s meeting with Putin. The authoritarians promised to bring their countries even closer together, but didn’t take any real concrete steps toward doing so during the at-times awkward affair, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. But in meeting with Russia, which hasn’t exactly been on the same page as the U.S. in its view on how to handle the peninsula, Kim appeared to be attempting to puff out his chest a bit as negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington grind to a halt. In short, Kim is saying to his buddy Trump: Give me the deal I want, or I’ll find someone else who will.

“Trump, as is his wont, has turned the engagement with Kim into an all-encompassing personal psychodrama, and the U.S. public and media drank that Kool-Aid,” Robert Kelly, a professor of international relations at Pusan University in South Korea, told NBC News. “Kim Jong Un is now happy to talk to anyone.”

Since first meeting him in Singapore last year, Trump has been fond of bragging about his “excellent” relationship with Kim, weirdly claiming at one point that he “fell in love” with the North Korean dictator he once mocked as “short and fat.” But there’s since appeared to be trouble in paradise, with the two best buds cutting their second summit short when they couldn’t even agree on first steps toward the denuclearization the president had suggested was a sure thing. North Korea has blamed the U.S. for the setbacks, suggesting the Trump administration is asking for too much, and calling for officials they don’t like—including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo—to be booted from the negotiating table.

That’s left U.S.-North Korea talks in jeopardy—and opened a void for another counterpart to step in. Enter Russia, one of Pyongyang’s few partners on the international stage. Moscow has also sought to limit Kim’s nuclear power, but along with China, another of North Korea’s allies, has backed a more gradual approach preferred by the North Korean leader. That’s contrary to the objectives of the Trump administration, which wants Kim to denuclearize “immediately”, and, in the eyes of Kim, has not taken adequate steps to ensure against regime change. On Thursday, Kim was looking to Russia for sanctions relief, but also attempting to strengthen his bargaining position by suggesting to the U.S. that there are other deals he can pursue should Trump’s not be to his liking.

That’s no way to treat your “friend,” but of course Kim is only friends with Trump to the extent that he can extract a favorable deal from the president. He and Putin seem to recognize that flattering Trump’s ego is a good way to get what they want, be it legitimacy on the world stage or relief from much-reviled sanctions. Trump, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be able to see that his so-called friends are trying to use him.

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