U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday played down North Korea's third missile launch in just a week. Experts said he's likely trying to keep negotiations on track, but they warned it may, in fact, be emboldening Pyongyang.

South Korea's military said unidentified short-range projectiles were fired at 2:59 a.m. and 3:23 a.m. local time on Friday from North Korea's South Hamgyong Province into the East Sea. In response, Trump said the launches didn't breach any agreements he'd made with the country's dictator, Kim Jong Un. In fact, he called Friday's "short-range missiles" trials "very standard," adding that he did not anticipate the recent spate of tests to derail negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang.

"I think it's very much under control, very much under control," he told reporters after what was at least the third North Korean missile launch in just over a week.

"We never made an agreement on that. I have no problem," the president added. "We'll see what happens."

Trump's lack of criticism toward North Korea's most recent missile tests from Washington has raised some concerns from policy experts.

For one, the president had previously trumpeted the lack of missile launches as evidence that negotiations were going well. In 2018, for example, Trump tweeted that Kim had agreed to "no missile testing" for a period. Speaking in Ireland during a June trip, the American leader noted the absence of "ballistic missile testing." And, less than two weeks ago, Trump said "there's no nuclear testing, there's no missile testing, there's no nothing."

Geopolitical analysts suggested that Trump's new public tone on missile tests may give Kim the impression he's working from a position of strength.

"Trump's muted response to that test likely emboldened Kim to keep testing, although keeping it in the short range trajectory to avoid seriously risking talks," said Kelsey Broderick, an Asia-focused analyst at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group.

Jean Lee, director of the Korea Program at Washington-based policy research firm the Wilson Center echoed that sentiment in a recent note. She said the North Korean leader calculated "that short-range ballistic middle tests do not directly confront Trump."