Mr. Trump’s critics say the action is consistent with what they regard as a transactional approach to foreign policy that diminishes concern for human rights. The president has embraced authoritarian leaders who oversee widespread abuses in their countries and rarely talks about rights violations. Mr. Trump has blocked sanctions on Chinese officials for running internment camps holding at least one million Muslims, for example, to try to reach a trade deal with China.

“North Korea and other abusive governments that the United States is going easy on are undoubtedly elated that the days of U.S. criticism of their human rights records appear to be over for the time being,” said Louis Charbonneau, United Nations officer at Human Rights Watch.

Even with the derailment of the human rights meeting, the North Korean government has intensified its recent invective aimed at Mr. Trump.

Kim Yong-chol, a hard-liner who speaks for the North Korean military, issued a statement criticizing Mr. Trump hours after the American leader warned on Twitter on Sunday that Kim Jong-un had “far too much to lose, everything actually, if he acts in a hostile way.”

Mr. Trump also ​warned that the North Korean leader should not “void his special relationship with the President of the United States or interfere with the U.S. Presidential Election in November” by resuming ​hostile acts.

The messages came after North Korea announced on Sunday that it had carried out a “very important test” at its missile-engine test site. Analysts said the test probably involved a booster engine that could be used to propel a satellite-delivery rocket or an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Kim Yong-chol, who is chairman of the North’s Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, said in response to the president’s comments that “Trump has too many things that he does not know about” North Korea, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.