WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has announced that his bipartisan All-American Flag Act is heading to the President’s desk to be signed into law after passing the House of Representatives this evening.
This bill would require the federal government to only buy American flags completely produced and manufactured in the United States.
In November 2023, the Senate unanimously passed Brown’s legislation after the bill passed with a bipartisan vote out of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
“American flags should be made in America, period,” said Brown. “Now, because of our years of effort to pass this bill, American flags the federal government buys will be produced and manufactured in America, by American workers. The President needs to sign this bill into law without delay.”
Currently, the federal government is only required to buy flags that contain just 50 percent American-made materials, meaning half of the materials in flags flown at our military bases and other federal buildings can be made in China.
Brown’s legislation will require the government to buy flags that are produced entirely with American-made materials and manufactured completely in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce and U.S. Census Data, in 2015 the dollar value of U.S. imports of American flags was $4.4 million.
Of that amount, $4 million of imported flags came from China. In 2017, the U.S. imported 10 million American flags. Of those, all but 50,000 came from China.