When newly-elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in headed to Washington in the summer of 2017, things were looking rather glum for the prospects of enlisting Washington as a partner in his engagement policy toward Pyongyang – which some pundits had dubbed the “moonshine policy.”

A then-harsh talking President Trump spent that summer and fall labeling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “Little Rocket Man,” even during his first speech before a rather nervous United Nations General Assembly.

The American President even promisedlast summer with much bravado to rain “fire and fury like the world has never seen” down