KENT — An economic summit here aimed at revitalizing the nation’s manufacturing sector recommended a focused plan to spawn a renaissance in production and innovation as a solution to the struggling economy.

But speakers at Monday’s regional economic summit in Kent said the problem for now is dysfunctional federal leadership that’s worsening the nation’s economic woes as the U.S. piles up international trade deficits that prevents the economy from fostering durable job growth.

The summit was organized by the nonpartisan Coalition for a Prosperous America, a national group that aims to revitalize the manufacturing sector and organize a bipartisan, well-represented power base that makes no apologies in advocating for “Made In America.” It was sponsored by a coalition of business, labor and agricultural interests including heavyweights Chesapeake Energy, Dollar Bank, Republic Steel, the Ohio AFL-CIO and the Ohio Farmer’s Union.

A similar summit is scheduled for Oct. 7 in Dayton at the Convention Center. Registration is available online at prosperousamerica.org.

About 160 attended the event in this town east of Akron including business owners, steelworkers, union reps, economists, bankers, and Ohio members of Congress including Tim Ryan, D-Niles, Betty Sutton, D-Copley, and Bill Johnson R-Marietta.

The problem, speakers and attendees said, is that national leadership has been listening to the wrong voices and for decades followed policies of unrestricted free trade that cost the nation millions of middle class jobs and billions in wealth as jobs were off-shored while unfairly subsidized, often illegal, foreign products poured in.

“This should be the issue we all agree on, let’s make this the issue that we unite around,” Congressman Ryan said. “We can’t lead the world if you don’t have a manufacturing base.”

Congressman Johnson called for “changing the dialogue. We create jobs by increasing exports and using more of what we make at home. We do that by bringing manufacturing back to America.”

The specific fixes, speakers and attendees agreed, should include:

•Trade Reform: Legislation targeting nations that manipulate their currencies, similar to a bill that passed the U.S House last year but never came to a vote in the Senate. A bill could be voted on by the Senate this year. Aggressive enforcement of trade laws is needed to cut off illegal product dumping quickly before jobs are destroyed, an example found in tubular steel that punished Ohio industry before it was curbed by tariff.

•Energy Policy: Develop sustainable and affordable home-grown energy to achieve energy independence in 10 years and prioritize the manufacturing industry that supports it, such as steel fabrication and solar equipment, to rebalance international trade deficits.

•Tax Reform: Revise and simplify the tax system to promote the global competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers, countering value added taxes imposed by other nations and not by the U.S.

An estimated $2 trillion in profits earned by U.S. companies is being held off-shore and should be returned to the U.S. for reinvestment in the domestic economy, Congressman Johnson said.

•Manufacturing Strategy: Develop a national strategy to counter predatory trade practices by state-managed economies like China and other competing nations.

•Workforce Development: Build a stronger educational system that emphasizes engineering and training for the manufacturing industry.

Local leaders and the coalition say that are not anti-trade agreement, they want smart, enforceable agreements that don’t result in the systematic, targeted destruction of American industry by nations that practice currency manipulation, taxation schemes and undisclosed national subsidies to destroy competition.

The message is well-received in Ohio, a state dogged by 9 percent unemployment that by 2010 had $22 billion less in annual private payroll than it did in 2000 as the manufacturing sector dropped by a third. Montgomery County was the hardest hit among metro counties with a drop of $3 billion in annual private payroll.

The message that reform is needed has reached the political elite, said economist Ian Fletcher, a Huffington Post contributor and author of “Free Trade Doesn’t Work.” He noted that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently attacking Chinese currency manipulation that cuts the price of its exports by up to 40 percent.

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, is “clueless on trade” to such a degree that it could take another major national crisis like the financial meltdown of 2008 to spawn corrective action, Fletcher said.

When imports exceed exports, that’s a trade deficit that amounts to $5.85 trillion in a decade that smothered American job growth, said Dave Frengel of Penn United Technologies, Inc.