Obama’s inauguration flag made in Belgium?

When Barack Obama was sworn in for his second term on January 21, it’s a decent bet that one of the flags fluttering behind him on the Capitol was made in Belgium, reports Reuters’ Teddy Nykiel. The Waelkens flag company, based in Oostrozebeke in Flanders, supplies about 2,000 flags a year to the US, with clients including the Pentagon and other government departments, as well as the UN. The company also makes flags for Nato, national militaries, the EU and just about every country in the world, from China to Nigeria. “We have a lot of know-how about how to make flags and a big tradition of embroidery,” said Benedikt Waelkens, who runs the company with his brother, David. “There aren’t a lot of people in the world who can make and are making handmade flags.” He said clients kept coming back because of the company’s unique flag-making knowledge and its faithfulness to tradition. There are extremely precise guidelines about how national and institutional flags must be made – down to the number of stitches per centimetre and specific fabric shades. Waelkens said a large, handmade US flag cost about €400.