THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

With Trump's latest Grand Distraction totally obfuscating last week's blunder in the US, one of the most endangered countries has spoken up to tell Donald to stuff it.

With his public alarmed by President Trump’s recent threats to North Korea, President Moon Jae-in of South Korea issued an unusually blunt rebuke to the United States on Tuesday, warning that any unilateral military action against the North over its nuclear weapons program would be intolerable.

“No one should be allowed to decide on a military action on the Korean Peninsula without South Korean agreement,” Mr. Moon said in a nationally televised speech.

As a candidate for the presidency, Mr. Moon, a liberal who took office in May, said he would “say no to the Americans” if necessary. But he has aligned South Korea more closely with its military ally than many had expected. Though he suspended the deployment of a United States missile defense system opposed by China, he reversed that decision last month after North Korea tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles.

But President Trump’s threat to bring “fire and fury” to North Korea, along with other statements from American officials about the possibility of war, has unnerved many South Koreans and put pressure on Mr. Moon to live up to his campaign promise. “Our government will do everything it can to prevent war from breaking out,” he said in his speech Tuesday.

Mr. Moon’s pushback was the latest indication that Mr. Trump’s unorthodox approach to foreign policy, coupled with Pyongyang’s rapid progress toward its goal of nuclear missiles that can reach the mainland United States, was putting new strain on the longstanding alliance. And it underscored how Mr. Trump’s volatile language is sowing division with an ally whose help would be vital to the success of any American military campaign on the divided peninsula.

There might be the beginning of a shared antipathy to Cheeto MUssolini here. Obviously neither half of the peninsula is thrilled by what Cheeto thinks is clever brinksmanship. And it would do us well to remember that there is another country involved here with much more to lose than we do.