When Donald Trump was running for president, he pledged (threatened?) to run the country like he ran his eponymous business empire, which saw him file for multiple bankruptcies, repeatedly stiff contractors, and launch at least one scam university designed to prey on the vulnerable and economically downtrodden. Since then, America has watched the Trump-as-dealmaker myth fall apart, and this week the world got yet another window into the ex–real-estate developer’s unique business style, where contracts mean nothing and screwing people might as well be written into the company charter. Only in this case, of course, the stakes are a bit higher than some shitty casino in Atlantic City.

On Wednesday, the president and his advisers hailed an agreement by South Korea to place limits on steel exports to the United States and to allow U.S. automakers to ship 50,000 vehicles a year that comply with American safety standards instead of the stricter South Korean requirements. In exchange, as promised, these allies of ours were exempt from Trump’s 25 percent steel tariffs. In a sign of just how pleased he was, Trump took to his venue of choice to call the agreement a “great deal for American and Korean workers.” And then, a mere 24 hours later, this happened:

President Donald Trump said he may delay a revamped trade deal the U.S. reached with South Korea this week until after the nuclear confrontation with North Korea is resolved.

“I may hold it up until after a deal is made with North Korea,” Trump said Thursday during a speech in Richfield, Ohio. “You know why? Because it’s a very strong card and I want to make sure everyone is treated fairly and we’re moving along very nicely with North Korea.”

Not only did these comments come one day after the new terms were announced, but they came moments after Trump said, in the same speech, that the renegotiated agreement was “a wonderful deal,” criticizing the existing one as a “horror show.”

Unsurprisingly, the riff took both White House officials and South Korea off guard. “We’re trying to grasp the genuine intent behind President Trump’s remarks,” South Korean Minister of Trade, Industry, and Energy Paik Un-gyu said Friday. “We regard the renegotiation of the free-trade agreement as having already been completed smoothly.” In other words, our allies in Seoul are trying to figure out whether Trump is seriously reneging on a deal he struck one day prior, or if this is simply yet another instance of him letting words tumble from his mouth at random without having any actual meaning behind them—a legitimate question, and one that other countries attempting to negotiate exemptions from tariffs will likely be paying attention to. (Elsewhere in the speech, the president mused that the U.S. would pull out of Syria—a statement that likely came as a surprise to the Pentagon, which said in February that U.S. forces would remain there “indefinitely.”)

Even more to the point, as Trump projects optimism on North Korea—“Look forward to our meeting!” he tweeted this week, in reference to his upcoming summit with Kim Jong Un—his flip-flopping could bring any semblance of progress to a screeching halt. When he says that he may violate the terms of a trade deal he just agreed to, he’s all but demonstrating a knee-jerk inability to keep his own word.