The most significant result from the DMZ rendezvous was Trump and Kim blessing negotiations between lower-level officials, which more or less returns the process to where it was six months ago, before the Vietnam summit.

“‘The United States has accepted North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.’ This is the headline,” the nuclear expert David Santoro noted in reference to the image of Trump and Kim standing beside each other at the inter-Korean border. “Look at the picture—really look at it—and tell me I’m wrong.”

Santoro’s point wasn’t that the United States is all of a sudden cool with North Korea possessing nuclear weapons, but rather that it is acknowledging the reality that Kim is highly unlikely to surrender them—and therefore settling for ways to reduce the threat they pose.