Raising the American Flag Made in China
As the world confronts President Donald Trump’s “America First” protectionism, one product stands at the symbolic center of today’s trade war: American flags made in China. A harbinger of economic globalization and a source of nationalist anxiety, these foreign-made flags have so far escaped the president’s tariff targets. Yet for the past two decades, and most recently on Flag Day, Congress has introduced bipartisan legislation to restrict or ban these imports.
Sales of American flag imports pale in comparison to America’s $375 billion trade deficit with China, but these Chinese imports are more politically potent than a line item on the Harmonized Tariff Schedule. Importing flags is not just a matter of economics and global trade. To its critics, it represents an economy, and a country, on the decline.
“We make the most emotional cloth on earth,” says Chris Binner of Valley Forge Flag in Pennsylvania. Their flags have covered the coffins of presidents. They have graced the moon during the Apollo mission. And they have been hoisted over Mt. Suribachi for the iconic photograph on Iwo Jima. When cloaking the fallen solder or marking the hallowed domain of cemeteries and ceremonies, the
