NEW YORK – The United States has withdrawn its special envoy to peace talksin Afghanistan after President Donald Trump canceled plans for negotiationswith the Taliban and Afghan government at the presidential compound at CampDavid in Virginia on Sunday, according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

At the same time, Pompeo warned that things “are about to get worse” forthe Taliban in the wake of an attack that killed a U.S. soldier in Kabullast week.

In interviews from Washington to five major US television channels onSunday, Pompeo argued that Trump was willing to take a political risk tostrike a deal on reducing the American troop presence in Afghanistan. Buthe conceded that the talks are dead “for the time being” and said theUnited States has recalled Zalmay Khalilzad, the chief U.S. negotiator inthe process.

“They tried to use terror to improve their negotiating position,” he said.“The Taliban overreached.”

Pompeo said that talks are “absolutely” off between the parties “for thetime being” after Trump called off a planned secret summit on Saturday.

In a series of tweets, the president specifically blamed the decision toscrap a planned meeting at Camp David on a recent car bomb attack inAfghanistan, which the Taliban took credit for and killed a U.S. servicemember.

“We had been working on this meeting for a little while,” Pompeo said. Butthe attack, “was something President Trump could never stand for and weinformed both President [Ashraf] Ghani and our Taliban interlocutors thatthese meetings were not going to take place,” he said.

Pompeo said that American forces have killed over 1,000 Taliban in the lastten days and that “while this is not a war of attrition, I want theAmerican people to know that President Trump is taking it to the Taliban.”

And he warned that the recent attack and the lack of negotiations wouldprove damaging to the Taliban.