RUTHFULLY YOURS

President Trump repeated his vow Tuesday to “send in the Feds” if the authorities in Chicago are unable to quell the violence there. His sense of urgency about what he rightly labels the “carnage” in Chicago is welcome. By contrast, President Obama last year dismissed the rising homicides nationwide as a mere “uptick in murders and violent crime in some cities.”

Some uptick. Fifty-four people were shot in Chicago last weekend alone, six fatally. That brings the homicide total so far this year to 42, up from 34 during the same time last year, according to the Chicago Tribune. Comparing 2016 with 2015, homicides were up 58% and shootings were up 47%. Last year’s shooting victims included two dozen children 12 or under, including a 3-year-old boy now paralyzed for life.

Mr. Trump is right to draw attention to the growing toll, but he is wrong about what the federal government can do to fix it. His call to “send in the Feds” is ambiguous, but the phrase seems to suggest mobilizing the National Guard. Doing so would require the declaration of a national or state emergency. However gruesome the bloodshed, there is little precedent for mobilizing the National Guard to quell criminal gang violence.

Civil order has not broken down in the Windy City; local authorities continue to deliver basic services in the gang-infested South and West sides. The homicide rate, relative to population, is higher in Detroit, New Orleans and St. Louis. If Mr. Trump or his defense secretary, James Mattis, is going to declare Chicago a national emergency, those other cities deserve the same. And although Mayor Rahm Emanuel has asked Mr. Trump for money, it’s unlikely he’d welcome troops.

If Mr. Trump’s reference to “the Feds” means federal law-enforcement officers, they’re already there. Local police in Chicago work on joint task forces with agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The Trump administration could—and should—direct the U.S. attorney in Chicago to rigorously prosecute federal gun crimes, a focus that withered under President Obama’s denunciations of “mass incarceration” for minorities. But such a reorientation is a longer-term matter.

Policing is overwhelmingly a local function. As much as Mr. Trump, to his credit, wants to ensure that children living in inner cities enjoy the same freedom from fear and bloodshed as those in more stable neighborhoods, Washington has few law-enforcement levers to achieve that goal directly.

I’m not as sorry as the editors to see the Trans-Pacific Partnership laid to rest. Because I agree with our editorial on a number of points, and because I fear that what I dislike about TPP is actually appealing to President Trump (and likely to recur in any bilateral deals his administration strikes), it is worth adding a few thoughts of my own.

1. The manner in which the Obama administration went about negotiating TPP has been wrongly maligned, undoubtedly because of (and contributing to) the distaste in which international trade is held these days. I have negotiated about a million plea agreements, some of them quite complicated. Had they been negotiated out in the open, with running commentary on the possible terms by non-parties or agencies whose interests might be affected, they would never have been consummated. The moving parts of an international trade deal — even a bilateral one — make it infinitely more complex than a plea deal.

While Congress has a critical constitutional role in reviewing international agreements, it is the president’s job to conduct international relations and make treaties. Eleven other countries cannot be expected to negotiate with 535 legislators plus the executive branch. Thus, the complaint about Obama’s having conducted secret negotiations with foreign governments in order to spring a damaging agreement on the United States was meritless in the case of TPP. (It is an apt complaint in the case of the Iran nuclear deal, which Obama never intended as a treaty.)

While TPP could have been damaging, that is because of its terms, not the secrecy in which they were negotiated. The question was not whether Congress should have had the opportunity to review aspects of the deal while it was being negotiated. (Lawmakers did in fact have that opportunity, under conditions of confidentiality that were appropriate no matter how much Congress complained about them.) The question was whether Congress was given an opportunity for meaningful review after the agreement was finalized by the countries taking part. There is no doubt that legislators had that opportunity — and, indeed, that TPP could not have been imposed on the U.S. without their consent.

2. Which brings us to Trade-Promotion Authority — the “TPA” that, regrettably, was conflated with TPP in the public debate. I continue to believe that TPA, which obliges Congress to give the president an up-or-down vote without amendments after the president has negotiated an international agreement, not only makes eminent sense but is the best way to avoid bad international agreements.

Remember when the media briefly decided that anyone who offends a Gold Star family was the worst human being in existence? Dissent is patriotic now. And how better to define dissent than spitting on Gold Star families?

Don’t worry, shortly Michael Moore will be on to explain that spitting on Gold Star families is truly the highest form of patriotism. And that their children died to protect the right of anti-Trump patriots to spit on them.

On Friday, Amy and I were assaulted by angry “protesters” outside the Renaissance Washington DC Hotel, where the American Legion hosted a tribute to Medal of Honor recipients at their Veterans Inaugural Ball. We were pushed by a man in a mask hiding his face. Our clothes were drawn on with permanent marker by other “protesters.” And we were called the most vile names I have ever heard as we entered and exited the venue.

What the individuals who assaulted us did not know is that I am the sister of Marine First Lt. Travis Manion, and Amy is the wife of Navy SEAL Lt. Brendan Looney, who gave their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Travis was killed in 2007, and Brendan in 2010.

I doubt very much that they would have cared. If anything, it would have only encouraged the anti-American left.

Looney and Manion were initially late to the ball because they couldn’t get through “an angry mob in the street that was burning trash cans and smashing windows,” Manion wrote on Facebook. When they eventually got near the entrance a group of around 75 people tried separating them from the ball. It was as the two women walked through the crowd that people began pushing them and yelling insults.

“We understand more than most how fortunate we are to live in a country where we can demonstrate and share our different beliefs,” Manion wrote. “But my question for those who chose to take this route Friday is this: Are you truly accomplishing anything by inciting hate?”