Since its inauguration in 2025, the current South Korean administration has maintained a steadfast, yet increasingly scrutinized, focus on facilitating dialogue between the United States and North Korea. This diplomatic agenda has been a recurring theme across a series of high-level engagements, including the South Korea-U.S. summits in August of last year and September this year, as well as critical meetings with Chinese leadership during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Gyeongju and January’s bilateral talks. Analysts suggest the government remains caught in a cycle of “hope torture,” driven by expectations that critics describe as detached from geopolitical realities. During the first South Korea-U.S. summit in August 2025, President Lee Jae Myung positioned himself as a “pacemaker” and requested his American counterpart to act as a “peacemaker.” In doing so, he inflated his own expectations for the possibility of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attending the October APEC meeting. This was the result of being seized by the vague hope that because U