Media controlled by the Pyongyang regime has been careful not to criticise Trump directly since his June 12 meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, reserving its occasional ire for Pompeo and other members of the Administration. But the timing of the piece may be more than coincidence.
Rodong Sinmun cited a South Korean radio broadcast claiming that US "special units" had recently flown to the Philippines, arguing this was a drill simulating "infiltration into Pyongyang."
It also claimed that the USS Michigan nuclear submarine had transported "Green Berets, Delta Force and other special units" from Okinawa, Japan to the Jinhae naval base in South Korea in late July or early August.
Colonel John Hutcheson, the director of public affairs for US Forces Japan, said he wasn't sure what drills the piece was referring to.
"US aircraft routinely fly from Japan to the Philippines and other nations around the region for a variety of training and operational reasons, so the notion that any single flight is related to North Korea is a bit far fetched," he wrote in an email.
But Rodong Sinmun argued the acts "prove that the US is hatching a criminal plot to unleash a war against the DPRK" in case Washington fails to achieve denuclearisation.
That would be a crime that deserves "merciless divine punishment," it said.
"We cannot but take a serious note of the double-dealing attitudes of the US as it is busy staging secret drills involving man-killing special units while having a dialogue with a smile on its face," the opinion piece continued.
"The US would be sadly mistaken if it thinks that it can browbeat someone through trite 'gunboat diplomacy' which it used to employ as an almighty weapon in the past and attain its sinister intention."
Trump announced the suspension of the US military's annual exercises with South Korea when he met Kim, calling those exercises "provocative."
In his weekend tweets, Trump put some of the blame on China for the lack of progress with North Korea, tweeting that because of his "tougher trading stance," the Chinese were not "helping with the process of denuclearisation as they once were."
Beijing said those remarks showed a "total disregard of the facts."
In a statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said China is making "unremitting efforts" to abide by the UN Security Council's resolutions, and urged all parties to "stick to the direction of seeking a political settlement."
South Korea's President Moon Jae In convened a meeting of his National Security Council Sunday to discuss the cancellation of Pompeo's trip.
A spokesman said Moon's planned trip to Pyongyang in September - his third summit with Kim this year - now took on added significance.
"The circumstances show that President Moon has a bigger role as the facilitator and a mediator unblocking the impasse between North Korea and the US and widening the scope of mutual understanding," South Korea's presidential Blue House spokesman Kim Eui Keum told reporters.
