Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump triggered rampant confusion among his own aides and administration officials when he said Friday he is withdrawing new sanctions aimed at North Korea that were just issued by his own administration.

"It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea. I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!" Trump tweeted on Friday.

The tweet set off a firestorm in the administration, with aides rushing -- or waiting -- to understand what sanctions Trump was referring to and what the policy implications would be. Many aides quickly concluded that the President was referring to sanctions targeting two Chinese shipping companies that have allegedly helped North Korea skirt sanctions imposed by the United Nations. Those new actions were fulfilled under existing sanctions authority.

But two sources familiar with Trump's tweet Friday afternoon said it was in fact not about those sanctions, but instead about additional large-scale sanctions targeting North Korea that have been in the works. It was not clear why Trump said the sanctions had been announced on Friday, as they had not. One source believed Trump had conflated the sanctions that were still in the works with those announced by the Treasury Department on Thursday, as the latter were the subject of news reports on Friday.

A senior administration official said the administration will not be pursuing additional sanctions against North Korea at this time and that the actions against the Chinese shippers remain in place.

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