Given the rhetorical bombshells fired from Pyongyang over the past few days, President Trump felt he had no choice but to cancel the June 12 summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. For the president, the decision was likely a difficult one to make. He talked up the meeting over the last 10 weeks as a bold and politically courageous move for world peace and a first step towards achieving a goal that all of his predecessors failed to meet: the disarming of a hostile North Korean regime from its nuclear weapons stockpile.

Realistically, it was probably a good move for the president to back away. His administration was all over the place on what a nuclear agreement with North Korea would look like and how long the denuclearization process would take.