Secretary of State Mike Pompeo might be smiling, but be cautious of the good news coming out of the New York minisummit between Pompeo and senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol — because Kim is a very devious guy.

As was always likely, the Singapore summit between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears to be back on. On Friday, Kim Yong Chol will deliver a letter to Trump outlining North Korea's desire to that effect. And the summit is good news, as it will allow Trump to quickly test whether Kim Jong Un is being serious in offering to dismantle his nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Yet Kim Jong Un's decision to send Kim Yong Chol to meet Pompeo should not be taken for its intended pretense of openness and trust towards effective diplomacy. Instead, Kim Yong Chol should be viewed for what he is: a skillful manipulator and the master North Korean hard-liner. Leading North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau intelligence service during the Obama administration's tenure, Kim Yong Chol directed numerous covert actions around the world. These included hyperaggressive cyberattacks against Western governments, as well as private sector and civilian infrastructure targets.

While the North Koreans now present Kim Yong Chol as a venerated older statesman, he is known to retain operational direction over the North Korean intelligence and covert action forces. And behind the smiles he will seek to maximize North Korean gains at the U.S. and South Korean expense. We've already seen this occur in North Korea's recent threat to cancel the Singapore summit unless the U.S. suspended military exercises. Kim Yong Chol won that showdown with Trump.

Now consider what will happen Friday afternoon when Kim Yong Chol hand delivers a letter to Trump. It will be vintage North Korean theatrics: the pretense of humility and moral purpose in the pursuit of tangible policy benefits. North Korea wants to establish a long-running negotiations timeline that allows its continued ballistic and nuclear weapons research alongside reduced U.S. pressure and increasingly formalized South Korean appeasement (which then splits the U.S.-South Korean negotiating alliance and allows for further concessions to Pyongyang).

Trump might think things are looking good, but this is a very complicated and immensely consequential game. He must not bend to North Korea's kind words and fake news.