In a characteristically impulsive display of public philosophizing, Donald Trump took to Twitter on Tuesday to leave his followers, and his own administration, mulling over his latest stance on North Korea, whose regime the president has repeatedly deemed a grave threat to America. “While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out,” he wrote, referring to his apparently failed attempts to persuade the Chinese government to contain the totalitarian regime, with whom China shares a 880 mile-long stretch of border. Ever gracious, Trump concluded his tweet with an amicable flourish. “At least I know China tried!”

When he entered the White House, Trump was stuck in a state of perpetual bristling over China. In January, when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he was moving to test an intercontinental ballistic missile, Trump indignantly composed a far less ambiguous tweet than the above, writing: ”China has been taking out vast amounts of money & wealth from the U.S. in totally one-sided trade, but won’t help with North Korea. Nice!” But after hosting Xi at a high-profile Mar-a-Lago summit in April, Trump suddenly changed his mind. Placing Xi at the center of his North Korean strategy, he triumphantly expressed hope that the threat would be “taken care of” with the assistance of China. “I explained to the president of China that a trade deal with the U.S. will be far better for them if they solve the North Korea problem,” he said, days after the meeting.

The latest escalation in tensions between North Korea and the U.S. follows the death of college student Otto Warmbier, who was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor after he was accused of attempting to steal a propaganda poster in Pyongyang. Released last week, he was in a coma when he arrived home, unable to see, speak, or respond to verbal commands. “The U.S. once again condemns the brutality of the North Korean regime as we mourn its latest victim,” said Trump.

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As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis prepare to meet with their Chinese counterparts Wednesday, Trump’s opaque, China-focused retaliation left aides scrambling to decipher the shape of its meaning. The agenda is set to focus on North Korea, as well as a range of other issues, including the fight against ISIS and increased Chinese militarism in the South China seas. If Trump seriously intended to openly shame Xi by emphasizing his apparent failure to re-steer his belligerent neighbor, an array of other, unsavory topics could creep on to the schedule, including debating the possible use of military force, and a potential upping of sanctions, which would affect some Chinese businesses that work with North Korea.

Unfortunately, nobody seems to know exactly what Trump was talking about. Multiple Trump administration officials were caught off guard by the tweet, CNN reports, with one acknowledging that they didn’t know what he was referencing or what the tweet meant. Those accustomed to Trump’s habitual online ramblings, however, know to approach his idiosyncratic perspectives on foreign policy with caution. Indeed, the president’s view of the North Korean dictator is apparently more nuanced than he likes to let on. In an interview with Reuters, he adopted something of a sensitive, paternal approach to Kim Jong-un, once saying, “He’s 27 years old. His father dies, took over a regime. So say what you want, but that is not easy, especially at that age.” And those familiar with his best-selling book, The Art of the Deal, will also be familiar with the president’s calculated penchant for exaggeration. “You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole,” he wrote, instructively. He has also written, as Axios’s Jonathan Swan notes, that the worst thing you can do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. The debate over whether Trump is playing three-dimensional chess or remedial checkers rages on.

For some, Trump’s abiding custom of conducting foreign policy online, and declining to embed it within the wider frameworks of White House strategy, may be a self-conscious, clumsy demonstration of tactical hyperbole exercised by a seasoned businessman. But the nuclear weapons-possessing North Korean administration probably has not read The Art of the Deal. As the Twitter-happy president blunders through another perilously sensitive area of international diplomacy, his typing thumbs furiously tapping, he is in danger of clashing with a regime that goes to great lengths to show thatit, in turn, is invincibly trigger happy.