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US President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un came together for a momentous summit Tuesday that could determine historic peace or raise the specter of a growing nuclear threat, with Trump pledging that “working together we will get it taken care of.”

In a meeting that seemed unthinkable just months ago, the leaders met at a Singapore island resort, shaking hands warmly in front of a row of alternating U.S. and North Korean flags. They then moved into a roughly 45-minute one-on-one meeting, joined only by their interpreters, before including their advisers.

For all the upbeat talk, it remained to be seen what, if any, concrete results the sit-down would produce.

“We are going to have a great discussion and I think tremendous success. We will be tremendously successful,” Trump said before their private session.

Kim said through an interpreter: “It wasn’t easy for us to come here. There was a past that grabbed our ankles and wrong prejudices and practices that at times covered our eyes and ears. We overcame all that and we are here now.”

In the run-up to the meeting, Trump had predicted the two men might strike a nuclear deal or forge a formal end to the Korean War in the course of a single meeting or over several days. But on the eve of the summit, the White House unexpectedly announced Trump would depart Singapore by Tuesday evening, raising questions about whether his aspirations for an ambitious outcome had been scaled back.

The meeting was the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.

Critics of the summit leapt at the handshake and the moonlight stroll Kim took Monday night along the glittering Singapore waterfront, saying it was further evidence that Trump was helping legitimize Kim on the world stage as an equal of the U.S. president. Kim has been accused of horrific rights abuses against his people. During his stroll, crowds yelled out Kim’s name and jostled to take pictures, and the North Korean leader posed for a selfie with Singapore officials.

Trump responded to that criticism Tuesday on Twitter, saying: “The fact that I am having a meeting is a major loss for the U.S., say the haters & losers.” But he added “our hostages” are back home and testing, research and launches have stopped.

Trump also tweeted: “Meetings between staffs and representatives are going well and quickly … but in the end, that doesn’t matter. We will all know soon whether or not a real deal, unlike those of the past, can happen!”

Addressing reporters on Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sought to keep expectations in check, saying: “We are hopeful this summit will have set the conditions for future successful talks.”

The summit capped a dizzying few days of foreign policy activity for Trump, who shocked U.S. allies over the weekend by using a meeting in Canada of the Group of Seven industrialized economies to alienate America’s closest friends in the West. Lashing out over trade practices, Trump lobbed insults at his G-7 host, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trump left that summit early and, as he flew to Singapore, tweeted that he was yanking the U.S. out of the group’s traditional closing statement.

As for Singapore, the White House said Trump was leaving early because negotiations had moved “more quickly than expected,” but gave no details about any possible progress in preliminary talks. On the day before the meeting, weeks of preparation appeared to pick up in pace, with U.S. and North Korean officials meeting throughout Monday at a Singapore hotel.

The president planned to stop in Guam and Hawaii on the way back to Washington.

Trump spoke only briefly in public on Monday, forecasting a “nice” outcome. Kim spent the day mostly out of view — until he embarked on the late-night sightseeing tour of Singapore, including the Flower Dome at Gardens by the Bay, billed as the world’s biggest glass greenhouse.

As Trump and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong sat down for a working lunch at the Istana house, the president sounded optimistic, telling Lee, “We’ve got a very interesting meeting in particular tomorrow, and I think things can work out very nicely.

It was a striking about-face from less than a year ago, when Trump was threatening “fire and fury” against Kim, who in turn scorned the American president as a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.” As it happens, the North Korean and the American share a tendency to act unpredictably on the world stage.

Beyond the impact on both leaders’ political fortunes, the summit could shape the fate of countless people — the citizens of impoverished North Korea, the tens of millions living in the shadow of the North’s nuclear threat, and millions more worldwide. Or, it could amount to little more than a much-photographed handshake.

Still, the sense of anticipation was great in Singapore, with people lining spotless streets holding cellphones high as Trump headed to meet Lee.

U.S. and North Korean officials huddled throughout Monday at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, outlining specific goals for what the leaders should try to accomplish and multiple scenarios for resolving key issues, a senior U.S official said, adding that the meetings were also an ice breaker of sorts, allowing the teams to get better acquainted after decades of minimal contact between their nations.

Trump’s early exit will be his second from a summit in just a few days.

As he sought to build a bridge with Kim, he was smashing longtime alliances with Western allies with his abrasive performance at the G-7. After his premature departure from Quebec, he continued to tweet angrily at Trudeau from Singapore, saying Monday, “Fair Trade is now to be called Fool Trade if it is not Reciprocal.”

Trump advisers cast his actions as a show of strength before the Kim meeting.

Alluding to the North’s concerns that giving up its nuclear weapons could surrender its primary deterrent to forced regime change, Pompeo told reporters that the U.S. was prepared to take action to provide North Korea with “sufficient certainty” that denuclearization “is not something that ends badly for them.”

He would not say whether that included the possibility of withdrawing U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula, but said the context of the discussions was “radically different than ever before.”

“I can only say this,” Pompeo said. “We are prepared to take what will be security assurances that are different, unique, than America’s been willing to provide previously.”

The North has faced crippling diplomatic and economic sanctions as it has advanced development of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Pompeo held firm to Trump’s position that sanctions will remain in place until North Korea denuclearizes — and said they would even increase if diplomatic discussions did not progress positively.

Experts believe the North is close to being able to target the entire U.S. mainland with its nuclear-armed missiles, and while there’s deep skepticism that Kim will quickly give up those hard-won nukes, there’s also some hope that diplomacy can replace the animosity between the U.S. and the North.

While advisers say Trump has been reviewing briefing materials, the president insists his gut instincts will matter most when he gets in the room with Kim. He told reporters he thinks he will know almost immediately whether a deal can be made, saying: “I will know, just my touch, my feel. That’s what I do.”

The annual G-7 summit appeared to have weathered tensions over US President Donald Trump’s threats of a tariff-fueled trade war until the mercurial American pulled out of a joint statement while citing “false statements” by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

It was an unprecedented attack on the leader of the US neighbor and ally.

Trump was aboard Air Force One heading to an historic summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un when he issued a pair of tweets Saturday criticizing the G-7 host and stepping back from the generally positive tone that had ended the two-day meeting. A few hours earlier, Trudeau had told reporters that all seven leaders had come together to sign the joint declaration.

Trudeau said he had reiterated to Trump that tariffs would harm industries and workers on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border. He said unleashing retaliatory measures “is not something I relish doing” but that he wouldn’t hesitate to do so because “I will always protect Canadian workers and Canadian interests.”

“As Canadians, we are polite, we’re reasonable, but also we will not be pushed around,” Trudeau said, and he described all seven leaders coming together to sign a joint declaration despite having “some strong, firm conversations on trade, and specifically on American tariffs.”

In the air by then, Trump tweeted: “Based on Justin’s false statements at his news conference, and the fact that Canada is charging massive Tariffs to our U.S. farmers, workers and companies, I have instructed our U.S. Reps not to endorse the Communique as we look at Tariffs on automobiles flooding the U.S. Market!”

He followed up by tweeting: “PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @G7 meetings only to give a news conference after I left saying that, “US Tariffs were kind of insulting” and he “will not be pushed around.” Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% on dairy!”

A spokesman for Trudeau did not address Trump’s insults in a statement. “We are focused on everything we accomplished here at the #G7 summit,” spokesman Cameron Ahmad said. “The Prime Minister said nothing he hasn’t said before — both in public, and in private conversations with the President.”

Reporters asked Trudeau for his reaction as he and his wife and another couple took an evening stroll, but the prime minister begged off. “Good to see you guys … It’s a beautiful evening, a great weekend,” he said.

Before leaving for Singapore, Trump had delivered a stark warning to America’s trading partners not to counter his decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. But Trudeau, whose nation was among those singled out by Trump, pushed back and said he would not hesitate to retaliate against his neighbor to the south.

“If they retaliate, they’re making a mistake,” Trump declared before departing the annual Group of Seven summit, which includes Britain, Italy, France, Germany and Japan.

Trump himself insisted relationships with allies were a “ten” just before he left the summit. But his abbreviated stay at this Quebec resort saw him continuing the same type of tough talk on trade as when he departed the White House, when he accused Trudeau of being “indignant.”

The summit came during an ongoing trade dispute with China and served as a precursor to the unprecedented meeting with Kim, in which Trump has sought to extend a hand to the Asian autocrat who has long bedeviled the international order.

“His message from Quebec to Singapore is that he is going to meld the industrial democracies to his will — and bring back Russia,” said Steve Bannon, Trump’s former campaign and White House adviser. Bannon said China is “now on notice that Trump will not back down from even allies’ complaints in his goal of ‘America First.’”

Speaking on Saturday during a rare solo news conference, Trump said he pressed for the G-7 countries to eliminate all tariffs, trade barriers and subsidies in their trading practices. He reiterated his longstanding view that the U.S. has been taken advantage of in global trade, adding, “We’re like the piggy bank that everybody’s robbing, and that ends.”

He said U.S. farmers had been harmed by tariffs and other barriers and warned that U.S. trading partners would need to provide him with more favorable terms. “It’s going to stop or we’ll stop trading with them,” he said.

Trump cited progress on reaching an agreement on the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, saying the final outcome would lead either to an improved trade deal or separate pacts with the two U.S. neighbors. Trump said he was discussing two types of sunset provisions in which any of the countries could leave the deal. A Canadian official said the leaders discussed accelerating the pace of the talks.

But Trudeau objected strenuously to a sunset clause of any length. “If you put an expiry date on any trade deal, that’s not a trade deal. That’s our unequivocal position,” he said.

Prior to his arrival on Friday, the president injected additional controversy by suggesting that the G-7 offer a seat at the table to Russia, which was ousted from the group in 2014. Trump said Saturday that re-admitting Russia to the elite club would be “an asset,” telling reporters, “We’re looking for peace in the world.” Trump said he had not spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a while.

Discussing Russia’s absence, Trump made the vague comment that “something happened a while ago where Russia is no longer in. I think it would be an asset to have Russia back in.” In fact, Russia was expelled from what was then the G-8 after it invaded and annexed Crimea and for its support for pro-Russia separatists in Ukraine.

Trump placed the blame on his predecessor, President Barack Obama. “He was the one who let Crimea get away — that was during his administration,” he said, adding: “Obama can say all he wants, but he allowed Russia to take Crimea. I may have had a much different attitude.”

It was not clear what Trump thought Obama should have done to prevent Putin from sending in Russian troops to seize the Black Sea peninsula from neighboring Ukraine.

Trudeau said he told Trump that readmitting Russia “is not something that we are even remotely looking at at this time.”