HMM: Trump’s Initial Outreach to North Korea Backfired.

The Associated Press reported early Saturday that in the first month of U.S. President Donald Trump’s term in office, he sent “an American scholar” to meet with North Korean officials and to relay a message.

The message was that the new administration was appreciative of a nearly four-month freeze of the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests – and thought it “might just offer a ray of hope,” the news agency said in its account.

However, the AP reported North Korean officials said the lack of testing wasn’t a sign of conciliation and insisted Kim Jong Un would order tests whenever he wanted. Two days later, the North launched a new medium-range missile, ushering in a year of escalating tensions.

This new report hardly jibes with the handwringing early last year that the new Trump Administration’s loudmouth antics would cause us to stumble into war with North Korea.