Trade distortions breeding 'disaster': DiMicco

Jun 22, 2011 | 03:39 PM | Anne Riley

Tags  Dan DiMicco, steel, China, Nucor, SSS Conference

NEW YORK — China’s refusal to participate in global trade on a level playing field is positioning the world economy for disaster, Nucor Corp. chairman and chief executive officer Daniel R. DiMicco said as he called for Chinese steelmakers to "get off the cocaine high" and "start playing by the rules."

"Unless we decide to compete on a global basis—country to country, area of the world to area of world—and play by the rules, at some point in time there will be hell to pay and there will be an economic or financial disaster at best—and it could be worse," he said in his highlight address at the Steel Success Strategies XXVI conference in New York co-sponsored by AMM and World Steel Dynamics Inc.

China’s "protectionist" practices of subsidization and state ownership might have had their place at the onset of China’s industrial revolution, DiMicco said, but as the country comes into its own it needs to follow the same rules as other manufacturing hubs worldwide.....