President Biden is taking a victory lap for securing the release of Brittney Griner, a WNBA player convicted of violating Russian drug laws. Look for the price of her freedom — amnesty for notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout — to be paid by innocents who lack the privilege of fame to protect them.

Former chief of operations at the DEA, Michael Braun, called Bout “one of the most dangerous men on the face of the earth” on “60 Minutes” in 2010 after overseeing his capture and conviction on charges of conspiring to kill American citizens.

Bout, who earned the moniker the Merchant of Death, sold arms to DEA informants who he believed were members of Colombia’s FARC terrorist group. How do those brave people feel now that the weapons trafficker is free to settle the score? Are their lives worth trading away for Ms. Griner’s freedom?

According to the New York Times, Bout was also sentenced to 25 years in prison for “conspiring to acquire and export surface-to-air antiaircraft missiles, and of conspiring to provide material support or resources in the form of weapons to a foreign terrorist organization.”

He has admitted running arms to Afghanistan and been accused of selling to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. The British Foreign Office minister, Peter Hain, wrote of the former Soviet officer in 2003, “Bout is the leading merchant of death who is the principal conduit for planes and supply routes that take arms … from East Europe — principally Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine — to Liberia and Angola.”

The latter two nations are in Africa, where the locals will pay the price. If the president shares Ms. Griner’s professed convictions on social justice, he might have thought of those victims before unleashing their tormentor to prey upon them once again.

“60 Minutes” host Armen Keteyian said, “Bout first exploded on the scene in war torn West Africa in the late 1980s, elevating bloody conflicts from machetes and single-shot rifles to AK-47s.” The death toll attributed to Bout, Mr. Braun said, was not “by the thousands, but by the tens of thousands.”

Mr. Braun said of Bout, “He transformed these young adolescent warriors into insidious, mindless, maniacally driven killing machines that operated with assembly line efficiency.” Mr. Biden keeps casting his domestic opposition as terrorist snakes, yet he has just unleashed a king cobra onto the earth.

Bout’s victims, of course, weren’t high-profile athletes with powerful friends who could lobby the White House. The dead and maimed in Africa’s civil wars and Ukraine might not even have telephone service, much less Mr. Biden’s office number, so none but their loved ones will know of their suffering.

During the Iran-Contra Affair of the 1980s, Democrats accused President Reagan of “trading arms for hostages” in Iran. Now, Mr. Biden is taking a victory lap for trading an arms dealer for a hostage, and in so doing, has painted a target on the back of every American who travels abroad.

Forget the mantra of the president’s party — that “nobody is above the law” — too. Bout was given what amounts to a presidential pardon not because of any miscarriage of justice, but because the Kremlin demanded it. If Mr. Biden was willing to let them name a price this time, why won’t the Russians attempt ransoming other citizens?

Before you plan your next trip overseas, I’d consider buying traveler’s insurance. Kidnappers, terrorists, and thugs have just been put on notice to grab you — and a man willing to sell missiles that can shoot down your airliner is back in business.

If you’re an average citizen traveling abroad or tribesman in an African nation at war, you’re out of luck. Mr. Biden has unleashed the Merchant of Death, and what we got in return was not only a beloved basketball player but a more dangerous world, and victims to be named later.