COLUMBIA — David McGehee was attending an event at the South Carolina Governor’s Mansion when he looked up at the flag flying over the entrance. He immediately knew it was made in China, he said.
“I can tell by looking at it because I’ve been doing it for 26 years,” said the head of Columbia Flag & Sign Co., a family-owned flag retail company in West Columbia. “They rectified it really quick.”
But the realization during the 2024 visit prompted McGehee to call his legislator, Rep. Chris Wooten.
“To me, being an old Marine, I think it’s a bit of a spit in the face to see a U.S. flag made in China, so I took it personal,” said Wooten, R-Lexington, who spent four years in the Marine Corps and seven years as a South Carolina state trooper.
So he filed a bill ahead of the 2025 legislative session requiring all United States and South Carolina flags bought by cities, counties, public schools and state agencies going forward to be 100% made in the United States. They must be completely manufactured in the U.S. with materials and supplies produced in the U.S.
After both chambers passed the bill unanimously, Gov. Henry McMaster signed it into law this week.
Now it’s up to state purchasing officials to redraft contracts to include the new manufacturing requirements.
Columbia Flag & Sign Co. has supplied flags to the state for more than two decades, McGehee said. He’s one of three vendors approved by the state as a flag supplier for state agencies.
He said he didn’t know where the flag flying at the Governor’s Mansion came from, but it wasn’t from his company.
And while having to reapply two years into his five-year state contract is a nuisance, McGehee said, it’s worth it.
“Honestly, it’s un-American to sell an American flag that’s not made by Americans,” said McGehee, a member of the South Carolina Army National Guard and a law enforcement veteran. “It just goes against my principles.”
It’s a long-standing problem for flag-makers and retailers, which industry groups have sought to combat.
The Flag Manufacturers Association of America, of which McGehee is a member, wrote an open letter to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos stating that more than 100,000 U.S. flags sold on the online platform each month are imported and falsely marketed as American-made, a violation of federal textile law.
“This is over $1.5 million of monthly sales of U.S. flags being sold that are not labeled with country of origin per the Textile Act,” the letter continues.
“Not only is it an ethical problem,” McGehee told the SC Daily Gazette. “It’s also a problem of quality.”
“You pull them out of the package from Amazon, they look great,” he added. “When they pay somebody in China 10 cents an hour to sew, the sewing quality is not there. So, they’re not going to last as long.”
Plus, it has an impact on U.S. and South Carolina workers, McGehee said.
Valley Forge Flag Co., which has five manufacturing plants in South Carolina — in Smoaks, Kingstree, Lane, Moncks Corner and Olanta — makes a large portion of the flags sold by Columbia Flag & Sign Co.
“This is a small niche industry,” McGehee said. “I know who the manufacturers are. I’ve been to their plants.”
Under the contract Columbia Flag & Sign Co. holds with the state, it sells flags to schools and agencies at prices that range from $6.25 for a 12-by-18-inch classroom flag to $190 for a 3-by-5-foot ceremonial indoor flag mounted on an eagle-topped pole.
It’s not the largest contract the company holds.
“But it still is important to us,” McGehee said. “Not only is somebody buying a handful of flags on that contract, but they need their flagpoles repaired. They need new flag poles. They need other products that we sell.”
Another U.S.-made flag company, Allegiance Flag Supply in North Charleston, doesn’t have a state contract but has offered 10,000 free U.S. flags to teachers across the country to hang in their classrooms in honor of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.
SC Daily Gazette is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. SC Daily Gazette maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Seanna Adcox for questions: info@scdailygazette.com.
