It will be only a matter of days before the Democratic Party press in America starts taking up the suggestion of Chancellor Merkel of Germany that we seek with North Korea a pact of appeasement like the one the Obama administration engineered with the ayatollahs at Iran. “I could imagine such a format being used to end the North Korea conflict,” Frau Merkel told the Frankfurter Allgemeine. Were Germany asked to participate, the chancellor warned, she would say yes “immediately.”

This is a devilish demarche, coming, as it does, at a time when the American administration is seeking to demonstrate its resolve against North Korea’s atomic bomb program. Frau Merkel’s interview is calculated to short-circuit any refusal on President Trump’s part to certify Tehran’s compliance with the Obama-Khomeini pact. It is dog-whistling to the New York Times, which is no doubt scrambling to get aboard the Merkel appeasement. Let’s see if it can bring aboard Mr. Trump’s newest pal, Senator Schumer.

New York’s senior senator, now the minority leader, played a double role in the drama on the Iran appeasement. Ostensibly he opposed the pact. Yet he refused to take a leading role in the fight against it, even when opponents sought to have have the pact itself put to a proper vote. In other words, he took a powder. That was all the more disappointing because it was clear that if the pact had been put to the Senate it would have been rejected.

This point is acknowledged even by the Times, which concedes that the Iran pact was opposed in the Congress “overwhelmingly.” The Gray Lady suggests that “many critics now see its value,” though its editorial fails to name any such critics. Germany, of course, never gave a fig about what the Congress thought of the pact. And why should it have? The Obama administration took the unratified deal straight to the United Nations, where Ambassador Power voted against the Congress of her own country.

“It’s presumptuous of some people to suspect that France, Russia, China, Germany, Britain ought to do what the Congress tells them to do,” Secretary of State Kerry snickered. President Putin must have loved that line. Frau Merkel, in any event, isn’t waiting for any formal nod in respect of what President Trump wants to do about the Iran deal — or about North Korea. She’s prepared to leap right into a negotiated settlement with Pyongyang that would, if Iran is any guide, leave its communist camarilla not only entrenched but richer to boot.

This is a moment for President Trump to remember the 30 American states that lofted him to office. The platform on which he stood described the Iran deal as a “personal agreement” between President Obama and his negotiating partners. It described it as “non-binding on the next president.” Mr. Trump himself promised to “rip up” the agreement. That he has grounds to do so was underscored last week at Washington by his envoy at the United Nations, Governor Haley. She is a better tribune of American interests than Chancellor Merkel.