In a remarkable scene Thursday morning, a haggard-looking Bob Corker opened Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s scheduled hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with an alarming message. “Because of developments that have occurred, we are going to go a little out of order if that is O.K. and let Secretary Pompeo read a letter.” Not 15 minutes earlier, the White House had released a formal message from Donald Trump to Kim Jong Un announcing that he had decided to cancel their upcoming June 12 summit in Singapore to discuss the denuclearization of North Korea. “I was very much looking forward to being there with you,” Trump wrote. “Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting.” It would have been an historic occasion, he noted wistfully, and perhaps they would come face-to-face another time. In the meantime, Trump reminded Kim, “You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used.”

Pompeo, who had flown to Pyongyang twice in recent weeks to defuse tensions between the two countries, spoke in a flat monotone as he read Trump’s words out loud, tripping over the word “inappropriate” and stopping to correct himself. North and South Korean officials, meanwhile, appear to have been blindsided. Journalists who had been invited to North Korea to witness the dismantling of a nuclear site reported that their handlers were shocked when they heard Trump’s letter. In South Korea, President Moon Jae-in convened an emergency midnight meeting with top security officials to discuss the abrupt decision. In a statement afterward, Moon vowed not to abandon efforts to bring Trump and Kim to the negotiating table, calling the efforts to secure a lasting peace “historic tasks that cannot be abandoned or delayed.”

In Washington, the grave diplomatic setback was somewhat less surprising. For the past two weeks, Trump and Kim had been testing each other in a series of increasingly charged public statements, including an indelicate remark by Trump’s bellicose national security adviser, John Bolton, that suggested North Korea should follow the “Libya model” of disarmament—a model, North Korean officials were quick to point out, that ended with a NATO bombing campaign and Muammar Qaddafi’s murder. Vice President Mike Pence had sought to clarify the threat on Monday, telling Fox News that “this will only end like the Libyan model ended if Kim Jong Un doesn’t make a deal.” North Korea’s senior nuclear negotiator, Choe Son-hui, was enraged by the comparison, calling Pence a “political dummy,” warning that Bolton’s insistence on total denuclearization was a nonstarter, and complaining that U.S. officials didn’t seem to understand North Korea’s position at all.

Of course, the U.S. and North Korea have been down this road before, with failed talks in 2003 and 2009, among others. “Can’t really say I’m shocked given North Korea’s track record,” one Senate aide told me. “Everyone’s trying to jockey for leverage, and I think the administration isn’t trying to let North Korea get away with their usual games.” Another Senate aide was similarly stoic. “Can’t say it’s terribly surprising,” he said. “The question is, what’s next?” Indeed, by midday Thursday, Trump was already cracking open the door to resuming negotiations. “It’s possible that the existing summit could take place, or a summit at some later date,” he said. “Nobody should be anxious. We have to get it right.”