The heated rhetoric, which Trump said Tuesday “he hated to do,” came against the backdrop of the death of Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old University of Virginia student who spent more than a year in a North Korean prison for allegedly stealing a propaganda sign from his hotel. At the time, Trump condemned “the brutality of the North Korean regime,” adding: “Otto’s fate deepens my administration’s determination to prevent such tragedies from befalling innocent people at the hands of regimes that do not respect the rule of law or basic human decency.” At the summit, though, the president did not publicly raise the issue of North Korea’s abysmal human-rights record. Kim has ordered the executions of hundreds of people—among them a general who fell asleep while Kim was talking—and the country is said to have up to 130,000 political prisoners in its camps. When asked about this by Voice of America’s Greta Van Susteren, Trump replied, “Look, he’s doing what he’s seen done, if you look at it. But, I really have to go by today and by yesterday and by a couple of weeks ago because that’s really when this whole thing started.”

But when Kim offered an opening in January, Moon Jae In, the South Korean leader, accepted it immediately, beginning a process of reconciliation that culminated in Tuesday’s meeting in Singapore with Trump. North Korea’s charm offensive began with Kim Yo Jong, the dictator’s sister, at the Winter Olympics in South Korea. She won rave reviews for simply turning up, smiling, and shaking hands with Moon. Amid the subsequent talks with South Korean and U.S. officials, the North even freed three U.S. citizens who had been detained for various reasons, earning the regime positive reviews from the Trump administration.

Those sentiments are likely to be repeated. In the apparent absence of any expectations, Kim, who is 34 years old, cavorted around Singapore with the city-state’s foreign minister and other officials, took selfies, and visited Sheldon Adelson’s casino. Until recently, Kim had not publicly left his country since becoming supreme leader in December 2011, and little was known about him. But in March, he visited China, his country’s main political backer, for the first time, returned there in May, received Mike Pompeo, first as CIA director and then as U.S. secretary of state, and now, to cap it all off, has met with Trump. Not bad for the leader of a regime of a country that has been starved by both stringent international sanctions and the Kim family’s criminal activities. North Korea desperately needs investment to bolster its economy—though its ability to create geopolitical instability is matched in quality only by its ability to evade international sanctions. But while Kim’s treatment of his country might create the image of a brutal dictator, what Trump apparently saw was a man whose “country does love him. His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor,” the president said.