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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has announced that the Senate unanimously passed his bipartisan All-American Flag Act. This bill would require the federal government to only buy flags completely produced and manufactured in the United States. In July, the bill passed on a bipartisan vote out of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
“American flags should be made in America, period,” said Brown. “Today, we are one step closer to ensuring the flags the federal government buys are entirely produced and manufactured in America, by American workers. This is just the beginning. Ensuring Made In America, whenever taxpayer money is involved, puts America to work.”
Currently, the federal government can buy flags that contain only 50 percent American-made materials. Senator Brown’s legislation would 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.
Brown first introduced this legislation in 2011. In 1974, Congress officially declared Findlay, Ohio “Flag City, U.S.A.”