"That is a decision the President took himself," said US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was on tour in Africa when Mr Donald Trump announced that he was accepting an invitation to attend a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
That quip from America's top diplomat betrayed a basic story: that President Trump went out on a limb when he made the summit decision, one which, at a stroke and in the most spectacular manner, set aside decades of US diplomatic practice.
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