The Kim-meets-Moon franchise is starting to show its age. The first meeting between North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in, held last April, was genuinely momentous: Lavishly staged at the DMZ that cleaves Korea in two, it even included an impromptu step into North Korean territory by President Moon.

The sequel, a hastily arranged confab in May, held again at the DMZ, could not match the first for sheer theater. But at least it had its reasons for existing. The meeting happened just as President Donald Trump had temporarily scuttled his own planned tête-à-tête with Kim in Singapore, and the leaders of the Koreas met to get the U.S.-North Korea process back on track. It worked: A couple of weeks later, Trump met with Kim.