U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s bill to require the federal government to only buy American flags completely produced and manufactured in this country will be signed shortly into law by the president after the U.S. House approved it by a voice vote.

The House’s voice vote came late Monday.

The Senate passed the bill Nov. 2 by unanimous consent and then sent four days later to the House, where it sat for more than eight months before the voice vote.

“American flags should be made in America, period,” said Brown, D-Cleveland.

“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.”

Brown first introduced the legislation in 2011.

The bill that passed Congress was introduced June 14, 2023, with Brown as the lead sponsor.

The original cosponsors were U.S. Sens Susan Collins, a Maine Republican; Joe Manchin, a West Virginia independent; and Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat.

The federal government can purchase flags that contain as little as 50% American-made materials.

The bill requires the government to buy flags produced entirely with American-made materials and manufactured completely in the United States.

The dollar value of U.S. imports of American flags was

$4.4 million with $4 million of it going to China, according to statistics provided by Brown’s office.

The United States imported 10 million American flags with all but 50,000 coming from China, according to Brown’s office.

The bill includes exceptions including the head of a federal agency determining the satisfactory quality and sufficient quantity of a flag cannot be made in the United States as well as procurements by American vessels in foreign waters, procurements for resale purposed in any military commissary or military exchange and “procurements for amounts less than the simplified acquisition threshold.”

Also, the president can waive the requirement to comply with a trade agreement, according to the bill’s language.