In just over a month, the first-ever private sector import ban on new Chinese drones to the United States will likely go into effect.
The ban itself, which industry insiders say could help U.S. manufacturers break China’s unofficial global monopoly on the technology, wouldn’t actually require President Donald Trump to act at all.
The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2025, passed in December 2024, included a provision that set a one-year deadline for an “appropriate national security agency” to determine if “communications or video surveillance equipment” produced by DJI, Autel Robotics, and their subsidiaries “pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.”
Together, DJI and Autel account for nearly 90% of the U.S. drone market, with DJI’s share of the global market exceeding 70%.
If the review doesn’t proactively conclude that DJI and Autel drones do not pose national security risks, or if the federal government fails to complete the review by the Dec. 22 deadline, then those products will be added to the Federal Communications Commission’s “Covered List,” barring them from import to the U.S. without specific authorization from the government.
As of last week, the Trump administration had not started the drone review, a clear signal that a ban is looming on the horizon.
Representatives for the FCC did not comment on the December deadline, while senior White House officials told the Washington Examiner that the topic wasn’t even on their radar.
As it stands, the possible ban would only prevent new products from being imported to the U.S. However, the FCC opened the door to banning all DJI and Autel products further down the road in October, when the board voted unanimously to allow itself the ability to ban products retroactively, even if they were legally imported to the U.S. in the past, if their manufacturers are later deemed to be security risks.
DJI has been waging an intense online messaging campaign, pressuring existing users of its technology to contact congressional lawmakers and demand an extension of the deadline. Adam Welsh, DJI’s head of global policy, called for an extension earlier this month.
“The U.S. government has every right to strengthen national security measures, but this must go hand-in-hand with due process, fairness, and transparency,” Welsh said in a statement.
However, Michael Robbins, the president and CEO of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, told the Washington Examiner that DJI’s recent messaging campaign is “disinformation” and that U.S. lawmakers conducted the review in question even before the NDAA was signed into law last year.
“In summer of 2024 and actually spring of 2024, a brief was made to the United States Congress in a classified setting in a [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility] at the Capitol by elements of the intelligence community around the unacceptable security risk of Chinese drones,” Robbins explained. “A number of congressional staff, members of Congress, committee staff were part of that, which then got briefed to the White House, and I was in the room.”
He continued, “That’s what drove Section 1709 [of fiscal 2025 NDAA], and that’s what DJI doesn’t like to acknowledge, and instead says, ‘Oh no, we need to have this review.’ No. The review is done, and yes, it does remain classified.
“The DJI guys are running around everywhere like, ‘Oh, there’s no due process. There’s been no review.’ But they have had reviews. There’s been multiple reviews. They know that, but they don’t like to acknowledge it.”
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A national crackdown on Chinese drones and other technologies tied to the Chinese Communist Party has seen growing, bipartisan support for nearly a decade.
Trump himself took several steps to limit the federal government’s exposure to Chinese drones during his first term, including barring Chinese drones from being used by all branches of the U.S. military in 2018 and adding dozens of Chinese technology companies, including DJI, to the Commerce Department’s trade blacklist in 2020.
Former President Joe Biden continued in the same vein. In 2021, Biden’s Treasury Department designated DJI as an arm of the Chinese Military-Industrial Complex, and, in January 2024, the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency published a memo claiming that Chinese drones “continue to pose a significant risk to critical infrastructure and U.S. national security.”
And over the summer, Trump signed an executive order aimed at growing the American drone industry.
“Drones are already transforming industries from logistics and infrastructure inspection to precision agriculture, emergency response, and public safety,” the order reads. “The time has come to accelerate testing and to enable routine drone operations, scale up domestic production, and expand the export of trusted, American-manufactured drone technologies to global markets. Building a strong and secure domestic drone sector is vital to reducing reliance on foreign sources, strengthening critical supply chains, and ensuring that the benefits of this technology are delivered to the American people.”
DJI has publicly denied that the company poses a direct national security threat to the U.S., but in 2019, Brendan Schulman, the company’s former vice president of policy and legal affairs, tacitly acknowledged a data-sharing operation with Beijing while testifying in response to a parliamentary inquiry in the United Kingdom.
“If you’re operating our drone in a way that’s critical,” he said at the time, “don’t send us the data.”
Meanwhile, Congress is pursuing its own security measures regarding Chinese drones. Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-GA) introduced a bill in May that would provide the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security with new resources to destroy any unauthorized drones flying near military infrastructure.
A number of lawmakers in Trump’s home state of Florida have taken action on the issue in recent years. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis enacted a statewide ban on government agencies and personnel operating drones from China and other “foreign countries of concern,” and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) introduced legislation last Congress banning the import of Chinese drones to the U.S.
Scott additionally pressed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr last month to move forward with a retroactive ban.
“For years, I have worked to reduce the United States’ dependence on foreign suppliers, especially Communist China, for critical drone technologies,” Scott wrote to Carr in a letter. “Our work to address this will not only strengthen national security but also bolster American industry, create high-quality jobs, and ensure that future generations of drones are designed and built according to trusted standards. We can reclaim our leadership in the global drone market, and this new proposed order can be an integral part of that effort.”
Robbins additionally suggested Trump’s previous drone policies, including new investments from the Department of War and deregulatory decisions taken by the Department of Transportation, would unshackle American drone manufacturing, once the December ban is enacted.
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“The reality is that for the past decade, us drone manufacturers have been held back by a market that’s been distorted by subsidization by the People’s Republic of China into their drone industry and a flooding of the global market of those subsidized Chinese drones,” he declared. “We’re going to see a significant surge in domestic drone manufacturing, in allied nation drone manufacturing, and with that surge, you’ll start seeing even greater capacity to innovate, and you’re going to see prices start to come down.”
“We think it’s a slam dunk,” Robbins concluded. “There’s a pretty clear case for action, and we anticipate that will occur, and that will be a significant recognition that the security risks of Chinese drones are very serious. Period full stop.”