The U.S. shouldn't force other nations to protect turtles. Europeans shouldn't forbid U.S. feedlots from using hormones. Other nations can pressure the U.S. not to protect turtles. The U.S. can punish Europeans for not wanting meat laced with hormones. A U.S. company can strike down a Canadian health law.
Corporations can lean on a U.S. state's commitment to human rights.
The Economist , in trying to fathom why greens don't love free trade, expressed perfectly, if inadvertently, the problem at the foundation of free trade fanaticism. Not even close. Breath and life and health are infinitely more legitimate goals than corporate expansion. Human freedom and dignity can't be valued on the same scale as stock portfolios. Making deals, shipping stuff, globalizing the economy is a sometimes useful, often destructive preoccupation of a small, self-important minority of the human race.