There has been virtually no U.S. aid to North Korea since 2009.

His comment, however, overlooked that fact there has been virtually no U.S. aid to North Korea since early 2009, when it resumed testing. Talks also have been in limbo for years. The last formal negotiation between Washington and Pyongyang on the nuclear issue occurred in 2012.

Eliminating the possibility of new negotiations could limit U.S. options, and wthin hours of Trump’s tweet, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis appeared to contradict him.

“We’re never out of diplomatic solutions,” Mattis said as he met with his counterpart from South Korea for talks on military readiness.

U.S.-allied South Korea supports, in theory, greater diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang. If war were to ever break out, millions of

South Koreans would immediately find themselves within range of the North’s large conventional weapons arsenal.

In Geneva, Robert Wood, the U.S. ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, sought to explain the president’s tweet.

Trump was expressing his frustration at North Korea’s “dangerous and provocative threats,” Wood said. But like Mattis, he said the U.S. remained willing to discuss the North’s denuclearization.

“The United States is open to trying to deal with this question diplomatically, but the other side is not,” Wood told reporters.

It’s not the first time Trump has complicated his administration’s national security message via social media.

Last month, as aides worked to defuse tensions between Qatar and its Arab neighbors, Trump blindsided them by tweeting that Qatar funded terrorism. The monarchy hosts 11,000 U.S. troops.