So President Trump's summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is off, for now.
In any business deal - and this is one way to look at the once-scheduled meeting between the two heads of state - there is always jockeying to get the best deal.
So, was this just two CEO's trading mutual insults and insinuations to gain the upper hand? And could it be put back together, as the president hints in his letter to Kim?
It might happen, but any summit meeting will still have to confront many difficult issues - and it is more likely that Kim has deliberately pulled the plug on the meeting in order to protect his equities and to set the stage for a later, possibly more successful meeting.
In the first place the two sides were far apart in their expectations. The U.S. expected an immediate denuclearization, including Pyongyang giving up nuclear tipped ICBMs in return for U.S. promises, while Kim expected immediate lifting of economic sanctions in return for his promises to eventually "denuclearize," with emphasis on the eventually.