Why North Korea's Kim Jong-un feels comfortable with Singapore

After weeks of speculation it's finally been announced - tiny little Singapore will host the historic Trump-Kim Jong-un summit.

The "little red dot" beat the DMZ, Mongolia and even Beijing as a place for the meeting to be held.

President Trump has shown that you don't need China - North Korea's most important trading partner - to talk to Pyongyang.

Still, it does beg the question. Besides a great airport and some neatly manicured gardens, why Singapore?

North Korea feels comfortable here
There aren't many countries North Korea has done business with. Singapore is high on the list, coming in at number eight in 2016, but that only made up 0.2% of the North's trade.

Up until late last year, Singapore was still trading some goods with North Korea, and it was only recently that visa-free travel between the two stopped.

Singapore is one of the few countries that still hosts a North Korean embassy and, despite UN sanctions, at least two Singaporean companies have allegedly continued to do business with North Korea as I found during an investigation earlier in the year - allegations the two firms deny.

Meanwhile, ships carrying cargo between Pyongyang and Singapore often go unchecked or unpatrolled, partly because of a lack of close monitoring by Singapore authorities, as the Washington Post reported in 2016.