Reshoring of American manufacturing back to the United States of America is a welcome trend that we are happy to salute.
U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s bill requiring that American flags bought by the federal government must be 100 percent made in the United States is a symbolically appropriate act and not without substance.
The bill, which he says he has been pushing since 2011, passed on July 22, and has been signed by President Biden. Until now, government-bought flags only had to be 50 percent American-made.
Federally purchased flags is not a big item in the overall picture of America’s gross domestic product.
According to the staff of Senator Brown (D., Ohio), the entire market for imported American flags in 2015 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. We could not determine how many flags the government bought.
It’s important for us to return to having a comprehensive manufacturing economy.
Three decades ago, China appeared to be on a path to becoming a welcome trading partner with the United States, with the United States happy to farm out much of its manufacturing to rising countries in the Pacific.
The result was a hollowing out of America’s heartland, the loss of good jobs and, to some extent, America’s self-respect, as we traded honest production of useful products for an economy focused on finance and management.
China’s threatening posture in the South China Sea, its threats against Taiwan, its support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and its history of unfair trading and industrial espionage against the West have damaged that relationship, and alerted us that America needs to be able to make what it uses.
The flags that fly over the Capitol and in front of government facilities and national parks should be made in the United States.
And as we learned from politics writer Alice Momany’s report in The Blade on Thursday, “Federal government must buy American flags made in the U.S.,” the flag-making association licenses its certification, requiring hand-stitching of the stars and bars.
The law sends a reasonable message that when it comes to products that are critically important to the United States, the manufacturing of them should be done in the United States.
The flag legislation, co-sponsored by Sens. Susan Collins (R., Maine), Joe Manchin (I., W.Va.), and Gary Peters (D., Mich.) applies only to federal agency purchases of the American flag.
And it allows for waivers if no American-made flag is available at the market price and if the President deems that it violates an American trade agreement. Also exempted: flags bought by vessels in foreign waters and flags sold at military commissaries and exchanges.
The bill ought to mean business opportunities for American flag manufacturers.
