Based on email with the folks at the site, they somewhat argue that they mean "protections" to be about "regulations" but that still simplifies things in perverse ways.

They are equating "free trade" with "corporate rights" in their formulation. Is enforcing patent barriers to trade in cheap AIDS drugs "protectionism" or "regulatory"? Then the WTO is protectionist and regulatory. The WTO is by nature a regulatory structure, so are all the corporate leaders who support the WTO for "protections" and regulations?

This opposition of protections or regulations to "global markets" feeds the ridiculous doublespeak that corporations, who manipulate domestic and global regulations for their own advantage, are for "free markets" when they are for markets that enforce regulations to their advantage (see investment rules, patent rules, and a host of other WTO rules). Using the opposition of "regulations" to "free markets" is an even worse formulation, in my opinion. It promotes the worst, most base ideological propaganda that exists in discussions of trade deals.

And how about immigration rules? Where do they fit in?

And where do you place actual "protectionists", those who want to protect domestic industry (see Bush's steel tariffs) and keep out immigrants versus those like myself who are anti-protectionist?

"Human rights" should include economic rights, but don't in most discussions. Many conservatives may want to punish a country for violations of religious freedoms or maybe free speech, but would never punish a country for violating labor union rights. And many countries are nominally "democratic" (allowing voting and free speech) while allowing the complete violation of labor rights.

And they miss the fact that top economists like Joe Stiglitz see broad labor rights as the key to "improving living standards" globally, so positing an opposition (as one question does) between punishing human rights violations versus "improving living standards" through trade is ridiculous. The fact that China is brutally suppressing wages and labor rights in their country is hurting living standards there and abroad in favor of enriching Chinese elites-- enforcing labor rights in trade deals with China is the key to raising labor standards and living standards.

You ultimately need a standard for trade that includes at least these four different positions:
1) Corporate/Wall Street Journal position -- lots of immigration, no labor rights, corporate rights regulated and enforced globally through WTO
2) Progressive protectionists-- global foreign aid for AIDS and local development, autarkic trade rules, favor local production/consumption, no WTO at all
3) Buchanite protectionist- unilateral foreign policy, little foreign aid, anti-immigration, protection of domestic industry, anti-WTO
4) Progressive globalist- anti-tariff, anti-patent rules in WTO, pro-global standards for labor and environment in trade deals, pro-immigration. Global keynesian investments to lift living standards around the world.

They also have to refine the "national interest" versus "cooperation" standard since it begs the question of whether there is a single "national interest" and who is cooperating with whom. Talking abour singular nation-state "interests" may work on military issues (although I don't think it does) -- the main framework for their discussion-- but hopelessly confuses how trade and labor rights discussions are made.

At the least they need to divide their current "protections" versus "global markets" into two bars, one that is actual protectionism-- meaning opposing trade and favoring domestic production/consumption with high tariffs and custom barriers-- versus increasing the volume of global trade, and a second spectrum around issues of enforcing labor rights and economic equality versus favoring a corporate-led model of development and trade.