On Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced his trip next week to Pyongyang with former White House and congressional staffer Steve Biegun, the Trump administration’s new Special Representative for North Korea. Scarcely 24 hours later, on Friday, President Donald Trump asked Pompeo to delay his trip because of a lack of progress with North Korea. But Trump still sent, he added via Twitter, his “warmest regards to Chairman Kim. I look forward to seeing him soon!”

Steve Biegun may be wondering what he signed up for.

Since giving the diplomatic world whiplash at his summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June, President Donald Trump has been spinning his North Korea policy as a victory. After the summit Trump falsely declared over Twitter that “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” He has since integrated his claim of success into his stump speech at rallies.

The reality, of course, is quite different. Despite repeated assertions by the Trump administration that Kim Jong Un agreed to give up his nuclear weapons, Kim agreed to no such thing. Since the Singapore summit, both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Trump’s own Secretary of State have confirmed that North Korea continues to expand its nuclear capabilities. Months after the summit, North Korea appears to believe that it has been given the seal of approval as a nuclear power by the U.S. president, while the United States continues to demand that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons.

What, then, does the new special representative and the cancelled Pompeo trip mean?