By Mike Boyer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

DOWNTOWN - America needs to wake up to the fact that inequities in the global trading system have stacked the deck against U.S. manufacturing, says the CEO of the nation's largest steel company.

"We need to stand up and say we're mad as hell and not going to take it any more," Dan DiMicco, vice chairman and CEO of Nucor Inc., told a packed meeting Wednesday of the Cincinnati Chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth at the Queen City Club.

He said Charlotte, N.C.-based Nucor has joined other groups, such as the National Association of Manufacturers and the Fair Currency Alliance, speaking out on what they see as inequities undercutting America's competitive position.

Nucor, with 10,000 employees and $6 billion in sales, has prospered despite the manufacturing slump, but DiMicco said the company's concern is fundamental.

"Without a strong manufacturing base, we won't have customers," he said.

Manufacturers complain that higher steel prices are hurting their profitability. DiMicco acknowledged that steel prices have risen, but they reflect the fact that raw materials used to make steel have tripled in price.

Earlier this week, Nucor raised its earning forecast for the quarter ending July 3 to $2.75-$2.95 a share. But a year ago, DiMicco said, the company earned 11 cents a share.

Citing a litany of familiar statistics about the decline of U.S. manufacturing, including the loss of 2.9 million jobs and the decline in U.S. exports, DiMicco said the nation's manufacturing base is eroding and threatening the country's future well-being and security.

Although U.S. manufacturing has started to recover from the depths of the recession, "it's the weakest manufacturing recovery since 1919," he said.

Among the inequities he cited are the fact that most foreign manufacturers are government-controlled and subsidized. "It's not a question of competing with other manufacturers; we're competing with other governments," he said.

Currency manipulation by foreign governments, particularly China, gives foreign manufacturers a built-in advantage over U.S. competitors.

At the same time, he said, U.S. manufacturers are burdened by higher costs for health care and energy.

Even the U.S. tax structure works against manufacturers, he said.

Under international trade agreements, value-added taxes paid by most foreign manufacturers can be refunded by their governments without being considered illegal subsidies. But income taxes paid by U.S. manufacturers can't be refunded under the trade pacts, he said.

He said concerns about the outsourcing of American jobs overlook the more fundamental problems triggering those job movements.

He said outsourcing was a response by companies to the inequities they face in the U.S. "You can't blame people for doing what they are doing," he said.

He said U.S. manufacturers aren't looking for subsidies, but a more balanced deck in dealing with foreign competition.

E-mail mboyer@enquirer.com