His comments were the latest example of how the president is casting the best possible light on North Korea’s steps so far, ignoring that the country is still producing nuclear fuel and, some American intelligence officials suspect, adding to its arsenal of 20 to 60 weapons.

The dismantlement of the missile site is significant because it will slow the North’s ability to test weapons’ engines. Given its history — it was from that location that the North at least twice launched primitive space satellites that experts in the West saw as experiments for firing a warhead — it is reminiscent of other steps that the country took a decade ago, when it blew up the cooling tower of a nuclear reactor.

But its weapons-building continued.

In recent weeks, and in public and private statements by Mr. Trump, Mr. Pompeo and other aides, hints of the president’s double-barreled strategy have emerged.

The current and former diplomats and intelligence officials said Mr. Trump has convinced himself that the only hope of coaxing Mr. Kim to give up his weapons is to effusively praise him. That means ignoring the tens of thousands — if not hundreds of thousands — of North Koreans whom Mr. Kim has put in gulags, his execution of perceived opponents and his refusal in Singapore to sign on to any document that created a timeline for denuclearization.

The American military commander in South Korea, Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, said on Saturday that while the North’s abilities were undiminished, Mr. Kim appeared to be softening his threats. He noted that it had been more than 235 days since North Korea had conducted a nuclear weapons test.

“In many ways, the lack of trust is the enemy we now have to defeat,” General Brooks said in a presentation via satellite to a national security conference in Aspen, Colo. Building trust, he said, would take time.

He was immediately answered by Sue Mi Terry, formerly one of the C.I.A.’s lead analysts on North Korea, who argued that the Trump administration had become so invested in the success of the summit meeting with Mr. Kim that it had ignored reality.