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In the end, it was too big a gamble.

A deal done in Singapore would have been a defining achievement for Donald Trump's presidency.

But the promise of success was, ultimately, imbalanced by the prospect of humiliation.

His "Dear Chairman" letter was sent after North Korea had warned of a "nuclear showdown", echoing Pyongyang's increasingly muscular approach to talks.

It was a threat that affronted this self-styled strongman president and ultimately forced his hand.

The context for the talks had already grown in uncertainty.

For that, the Trump administration has to take much of the blame.

International diplomacy is built on faceless diplomats building negotiations from the bottom up.

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Diplomacy Trump-style happens the other way around.

Even before the diaries were compared, there was talk of a Nobel Peace Prize for the US president as the White House fermented the sense that a deal was in the bag.

It was a prospect that confounded the failure through generations of trying to rein in the Pyongyang regime.

But as the new pals' act grew between Donald and Kim, old problems undermined the relationship, to the point where the US president saw danger.

Emerging from talks with anything less than total denuclearisation in North Korea would have shredded his credibility.

North Korea is notoriously unpredictable in negotiation on nuclear matters - slippery, as befits a "supreme leader" who counts on his nuclear weapons for his very survival.

As an individual, he presents a diplomatic challenge demanding subtly and finesse - to gain clarity on what he thinks, never mind reach a deal on disarmament.

Getting inside the mind of Kim Jong Un has been beyond Donald Trump, like so many others.

He is a smash hit in the New York real estate business, the dealmaker deft at selling property.

Selling peace comes at a higher price.