As they always do on the anniversary of the armistice, North Koreans celebrated their "victory" in the Korean War on 27 July. A few days later, President Donald J Trump remarked that if the North Koreans made any more threats, they "will be met with fire and fury, and frankly, power the likes of which the world has never seen".

No American president has uttered words like this since Harry Truman warned the Japanese, between Hiroshima and Nagasaki, either to surrender or face "a rain of ruin from the air, the likes of which has never been seen on this earth". Trump's nuclear bluster, made off-the-cuff between golf rounds, was widely condemned, but a few days later he doubled down on it.

As a White House staffer told the New York Times, the president "believes he has a better feel for Mr Kim [Jong-un] than his advisers do. He thinks of Mr Kim as someone pushing people around, and Mr Trump thinks he needs to show that he cannot be pushed."