WASHINGTON _ With the abrupt collapse of President Donald Trump's second nuclear summit Thursday, another key prong of his audacious foreign policy appeared in disarray, at least for now.
The breakdown of talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, Vietnam, came as the White House struggled to win regional support for its still-secret Mideast peace proposal, and as Trump's efforts to unseat the president of Venezuela have yet to produce results.
With all three priorities, Trump has discovered that his enthusiasm, flattery and TV reality-style showmanship haven't been enough to untangle the diplomatic knots in some of the world's most troublesome regions.
Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was wrapping up a five-nation Middle East tour Thursday intended to raise support for a possible Israeli-Palestinian peace plan _ what Trump has called "the deal of the century."
The White House has repeatedly promised to release details of the plan, and now says it will do so in April after Israeli elections. But Palestinian officials have boycotted any meetings with U.S. officials, so its prospects for success remain dim.
Kushner's latest visit to the region was overshadowed by his first meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman since the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi Consulate. U.S. intelligence has assessed that the crown prince likely authorized the murder.
According to the White House, Kushner and other officials discussed greater U.S.-Saudi cooperation, the administration's peace proposal, and "ways to improve the condition of the entire region through economic investment." The statement didn't mention Khashoggi.
U.S. efforts to dislodge Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and to install opposition leader Juan Guaido, also have come to naught so far.
Vice President Mike Pence had led the charge. He met with Guaido on Monday in neighboring Colombia and announced new sanctions on Venezuelan officials.
That came two days after a U.S.-backed effort to send convoys of food and medicine into Venezuela from Colombia and Brazil led to deadly violence between anti-Maduro protesters and Venezuelan security forces, leaving at least four people dead.
The administration has signaled that it would push a resolution at the U.N. Security Council calling for free, fair and credible presidential elections in Venezuela. But Russia, which continues to support Maduro, is expected to veto it.
U.S. officials insist members of Maduro's army and spy services have begun to defect to the opposition, but Guaido was reported in Brazil on Thursday and Maduro appears firmly in control.
Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo insisted the campaign was not doomed.
"We are hopeful that over the next couple of weeks, we can really begin to make a dent in that problem," he told reporters as he flew from Hanoi to Manila on Thursday. "It is big problem. It is a problem that will take a long time" to resolve, he said.
The setback for Trump's diplomacy was strongest, however, at the nuclear summit in Hanoi.
"This should not have happened," Richard Haass, president of the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, said on Twitter after the summit collapsed.
"Busted summit is risk you run when too much faith placed in personal relations w leader like Kim, when summit inadequately prepared, and when president signaled he was confident of success," the tweet read.
Several experts said Trump was correct to walk out over what he said was Kim's demands to lift all U.S. sanctions in exchange for a promise to dismantle North Korea's main production facility _ but not the only one _ for the enriched uranium and plutonium used in nuclear bombs.
But, they said, the negotiations should not have reached that point, a breakdown that could impede the resumption of talks.
"This is the risk of trying diplomacy of this delicacy at the highest level," Susan Rice, national security adviser to President Barack Obama, told NPR on Thursday. "When leaders fail under such a spotlight, it's harder to put Humpty-Dumpty back together."
Kim also was eager to meet directly with Trump, convinced he could get better concessions from an eager-to-deal Trump, experts say.
Another lesson for Trump may have been the value in listening to advisers, something he has not always been willing to do.
Trump met alone with Kim at their first summit in Singapore in June. In Hanoi, Pompeo, who has urged more caution on North Korea and openly contradicted the president about the nuclear threat, accompanied Trump.
Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, also sat at the table in Hanoi with Kim and Trump. Bolton, who takes a much harder line on Pyongyang, was previously sidelined in the nuclear negotiations.
After joining the administration last year, Bolton incurred Trump's wrath by suggesting that North Korea could follow the path of Libya in giving up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic and diplomatic benefits.
North Korean officials were furious because several years after Libya gave up its nascent program, leader Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown and killed. Trump publicly disavowed Bolton's comments, which nearly derailed the first Kim summit in Singapore.
Olivia Enos, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which has advised Trump on foreign policy, made several recommendations for dealing with North Korea that Trump could well apply to other international negotiations.
The "emphasis going forward should be placed less on high-level summitry and more on working-level dialogue," Enos said in an email Thursday from Hanoi.
"That is where real progress is made because the thornier subjects can be discussed with a frankness that cannot happen when the two leaders meet during public, high-level summits."
For Trump to attend a second summit with high expectations but without a pre-negotiated agreement was always a risky strategy for a successful foreign policy.
"That should be avoided in the future," she said.
