After North Korea launched a series of missiles into the sea early May for the first time in a year and five months, President Donald Trump and members of his administration has come out defending the current state of the two nations’ relationship.

“I believe Kim Jong Un fully recognizes the great economic potential of North Korea,” the president tweeted after the first missile launch, “and will do nothing to interfere or end it. He also knows that I am with him and does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!”

A strong support for this view of the situation came from State Secretary Mike Pompeo the day after this tweet was published.

“At no point was there ever any international boundary crossed,” Pompeo said after the first missile launch. “They landed in the water east of North Korea and didn’t present a threat to the United States or to South Korea or Japan. We know that they were relatively short range, and beyond that, we know that they weren’t intercontinental ballistic missiles either. We still believe that there’s an opportunity to get a negotiated outcome where we get fully verified denuclearization.”

North Korea, before the peace talks with South Korea and the United States began last year, was notorious for its frequent use of missile launches as a tool to provoke the free world and receive international attention. Now that President Trump has proclaimed no deal would be struck until North Koreans agree to give up all of its nuclear arsenal, North Korea might be resorting to its old methods of threatening the global community instead of dialogues.

“We want to get back to the table,” Pompeo said. “We still believe there’s a path forward.”