The North would have thumbed its nose at the U.S., just as it did while both the Bush and Obama administrations pursued similar strategies, conducting more missile and nuclear-weapons tests to demonstrate it can’t be pushed around. The Chinese, who have consistently maintained that for them North Korean denuclearization is a lower priority than stability on the Korean peninsula, the survival of the Kim regime, and maintenance of North Korea as a buffer state, would have flipped a Clinton administration the middle finger. Both the North Koreans and the Chinese would have found ways to circumvent or mitigate the effects of further tightening sanctions that have been gradually mounting ever since North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006, and as they have done repeatedly throughout the Obama administration.

The Trump team, however, seems intent on snatching defeat from the jaws of possible victory. Like his predecessors, the president-elect and his minions now appear to want to dump the North Korean problem into China’s lap (“China can solve that problem for us with one phone call,” Trump has declared), and pressure China to do America’s bidding by imposing new sanctions on the North whose purpose is to coerce Beijing. But Trump’s well-advertised instincts for negotiating good deals point to a better alternative. North Korea (and its Chinese patrons) have stated repeatedly that it wants the United States to end what it sees as a hostile policy of regime change in North Korea, and to have the United States accept the country’s status as a sovereign and independent nation; this, rather than ineffectual sanctions, is the real source of American leverage with the North. Moreover, all the other protagonists in this drama are looking for bold American leadership. That is certainly true for South Korea and Japan, who understand that Washington’s role is key because of its political, economic, and military clout. And it is true for the Chinese, who see a deal between the U.S. and North Korea as essential to solving this security problem. Trump has railed against the outsourcing of American jobs to China; he should be equally incensed about outsourcing America’s North Korean diplomacy to Beijing.

American policy toward North Korea veered into a ditch under the Obama administration. President Trump and his advisers will hopefully be smart enough to follow the first law of holes: Stop digging. The new administration has an opportunity to take the North up on its offer to address concerns about its nuclear program if Washington ends its “hostile policy,” the reason it developed those weapons in the first place. It could make Pyongyang a serious and credible diplomatic offer to negotiate a peace treaty to replace the temporary armistice that stopped the Korean War in 1953. Of course, no one should harbor any illusions that achieving the two key objectives of diplomacy—denuclearization and a peace treaty—are anything but a long-term vision. But it may be possible, with this mutual vision in mind, to start taking steps down a less confrontational, more peaceful path that at least brings all concerned closer to achieving both. A key part of that process will be to first freeze Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs and then move on to reversing and eventually ending them if the political environment continues to improve.