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Free trade, pfft.
A fall off in trade is a symptom, not a cause. That's as true now as it was in the 1930s. A crisis of capitalism occurs when the most basic capitalist transactions do not take place. Capitalist relations are not reproducing themselves, or they do so only at a level which cannot maintain the current level of development. Widget makers do not have the money to make widgets. Widget buyers do not have the money to buy them. Lenders do not lend money. The bottleneck is in the cash nexus, and not the regulation of trade.
As for protectionism, the nation is an inadequate unit of analysis. Do American capitalists benefit from "free trade"? That is self-evident. Does it screw American workers? Of course!
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