Barry Soper: The world watches as Donald Trump's diplomacy faces toughest test

After all the bluster Donald Trump's diplomacy skills are about to be tested.

The world watches as two of the most unusual leaders in modern times meet in the interests of world peace.

Unusual in that both Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un have for the past year and a bit, fired off missiles and salvos, calling each other names like the short, fat Rocket Man, on the one side, and an old lunatic on the other.

Their behaviour has been childish but in this world of reality politics, led by the American President, anything goes it seems.

In the past few months they have started behaving like grown ups, although one of Trump's ageing playmates Rudy Giuliani last week ran the risk of having the sensitive Kim throw his toys out of the playpen when he claimed the North Korean hermit went down on his hands and knees, begging Trump to come to his party. Fortunately that outburst appears to have been lost in translation.

Trump, who pats himself on the back as the best deal maker in the history of the world, didn't sound to be brimming with confidence that the meeting would even take place at a press conference just days earlier.

"Things are moving along well, it looks like the meeting is set. The summit is all ready to go, subject always to change. You never know in this world. Subject to change but the summit is all ready to go," he declared.

On his preparation for the summit, Trump was equally confusing saying in one breath he's very well prepared for it - but in the next declaring "I don't think I have to prepare very much."

It isn't a question of preparation, he said as an afterthought, it's a question of whether or not people want it to happen. He reckons they'll know that pretty quickly.

So it seems to be all on for tomorrow on the luxurious island of Sentosa which has been sealed off for days, locked down in a security zone, as are areas surrounding the two hotels in downtown Singapore where the leaders are staying.

The deal maker doesn't think it'll be a one meeting deal. And almost as if speaking of himself and Kim, who'll be across the table from him, Trump said there's been a lot of enemies out there, a lot of dislike, a lot of hatred between two countries.

The world can only hope that Trump's able to make himself a little clearer when he confronts Kim with his list of demands, the leading one being the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

Anything short of that will be a failure in Trump's book.

It'll certainly be a meeting of unusual minds, with the President not too long ago describing Kim as a madman who doesn't mind starving or killing his people, adding he'll be tested like never before.

True!