Like a whisper of “covfefe” in the night, President Trump’s reservations about the ramifications of his trade war with China have vanished into the ether. Earlier this weekend, the “Trade Wars Are Good” commander-in-chief acknowledged to reporters at the G7 summit that he’d had some “second thoughts” about a round of tariff-slapping between Chinese and American goods. Hours later, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham insisted Trump’s very-defensible skepticism in no way reflected any official position.

“This morning in the (meeting) with the U.K., the president was asked if he had ‘any second thought on escalating the trade war with China,’” Grisham said in a statement. “His answer has been greatly misinterpreted. President Trump responded in the affirmative — because he regrets not raising the tariffs higher.”

Even for the Trump White House that appears to be a lot of spin. The New York Times reports that Trump’s literal response to questions of second thoughts in the trade war with China was “Yeah, sure, why not? Might as well. Might as well. I have second thoughts about everything.” A transcript of the morning meeting further revealed that he’d been asked the question three times, and responded affirmatively in all cases.

The long-simmering trade war has been front and center in recent weeks as economic indicators have begun to suggest a recession in the offing for the U.S. economy. Wall Street is on edge as well. Last week, after Trump announced further increased tariffs on Chinese goods and China responded in kind, the Dow plummeted.

Trump also stated at the G7 meeting that he didn’t expect to utilize an emergency declaration to force American companies out of doing business in China. He’d first made the strange threat during a Twitter rampage against China, subsequently citing an obscure 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act as his rationale. “If I want, I could declare a national emergency," he said, per USA Today. But, “actually, we’re getting along very well with China right now. ... So we’ll see what happens.”

Even recently-elected U.K. prime minister Boris Johnson appeared to dive out of Trump’s canoe, not wanting to get caught up in any trade threats. “Just to register the faint, sheep-like note of our view on the trade war, we're in favor of trade peace on the whole, and dialing it down if we can,” Johnson said at the breakfast meeting with President Tariffs. “On the whole, the U.K. has profited massively in the last 200 years from free trade, and that's what we want to see. And so we're keen to see —we don't like tariffs on the whole.”