• New devices on the Covered List, such as foreign-made drones, are prohibited from receiving FCC authorization and are therefore prohibited from being imported for use or sale in the U.S. This update to the Covered List does not prohibit the import, sale, or use of any existing device models the FCC previously authorized.
• This action does not affect any previously-purchased drone. Consumers can continue to use any drone they have already lawfully purchased or acquired."
Commentary: DJI has effectively been banned from operation in the US (unable to import anything with a transmitter, including most of their gimbals, mics, and other photography related equipment) They represent 70 to 80% of the US drone market. Probably closer to 100% for those that fly noncommercially. Autel, the other large manufacturer, is also banned.
I don't understand how banning future drones helps national security in any way.
It is about money. If they ban drones that are already inside the US, they risk lawsuits by drone owners/importers for expropriation of their property. Banning things that are not already inside the country is easier as nobody has an absolute right to import stuff.
It is akin to weapons bans. Banning future sales of machine guns is far far easier to implement than outlawing those already sitting in gun cabinets across the country. The former is free to implement, the later very expensive.
The economic and political costs of grounding everything now are too high to do that. Even if the FCC somehow had the manpower to enforce such a ban.
In this case the geopolitical shift is relatively recent, so the fear is companies will be pushed to do more than they were in the past.
This looks like industrial policy masquerading as defense in order to clear the board for domestic manufacturers just as the Pentagon starts handing out contracts to politically connected players.
Case in point: Unusual Machines just secured a massive Army contract for drone motors. Their advisor and major shareholder? Donald Trump Jr. [0]. Banning the import of foreign "critical components" conveniently forces the market into their funnel.
[0] https://www.ft.com/content/4cedc140-4a02-4ab6-9f78-93dd8c51a...
That's worse if you believe there are possibility of war...
This door-slamming-shut-suddenly method says there is no plan, and given we don't domestically make most of the critical components ourselves, at best it's going to take awhile to build the factories and expertise to make up for the loss of the biggest suppliers in the market.
We'll get to pay much higher prices for much worse products while we do so.
Just looking at what's available for enterprise use (since there is no consumer-selling US drone company at this point) it looks like US companies are around a decade behind.
As if they even need to do it surreptitiously. They'd just announce it in the Oval Office with a giant gold plaque for Trump, a few million bucks for the ballroom, and agree that government purchases can be made in Trumpcoin.
> Federal planning for the 2026 FIFA World Cup and 2028 Olympics already assumes that UAS will be a central threat vector. CISA’s soft‑target and UAS guidance notes that crowded venues, transportation nodes, and public‑gathering areas are particularly vulnerable to hostile drone activity.9 Recent congressional hearings on mass‑gathering security have emphasized that UAS are now a routine part of incident planning, alongside more traditional threats.10 The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of War are already investing heavily in detection, tracking, and mitigation capabilities with these specific events in mind.11 UAS are also playing a critical enabling role on the battlefield in many modern conflicts. In Ukraine and Israel-Gaza, low-cost commercial UAS inflict extensive damage and have caused significant loss of life.12 Drug Cartels are also reportedly using foreign-produced UAS to smuggle drugs into the United States and carry out attacks.
I'm sure, the ban on DJI devices will stop fentanyl and terrorists.
But these companies have interposed themselves between purchasers and their drones. You have to activate your drone using an app, the apps have been connecting back to china since the early DJI products, and with an update they could just fly away.
Seriously, why do people need an account to activate/fly?
So when they find your drone crashed into the Whitehouse lawn, they can track it back to you rather than rely on you to phone in a confession.
https://slate.com/technology/2015/03/white-house-lawn-drone-...
> The 31-year-old Usman lost control of a Phantom FC40 drone owned by a friend early that morning, and telephoned his employers and the Secret Service to report the incident when he learned the small model aircraft had been found on the White House grounds.
For regular airplanes flown by highly trained pilots relying on pilots to put in the effort to learn of changes that might affect a trip works. If a regular airplane pilot flies somewhere they are not supposed to be because they didn't check NOTAMs or were using outdated charts no one is going to say Cessna needs to do more to keep pilots from making those mistakes.
For drones, which require much less training and are sold to consumers, it is much more likely that the operators won't keep up to date. A spate of consumer drones entering restricted airspace would definitely lead to serious pressure on the makers to do something about it.
Similar for updates that fix bugs. With airplanes it is reasonable to expect the operator to apply any updates that the maker releases that fix bugs that might affect airworthiness. With drones, not so much.
Theft, for one. Anything that can be re-sold secondhand with no way for the owner to verify it hasn't been stolen will get stolen and re-sold for drug money.
You don't hear mass reports from hobos attacking people for their iPhones any more ever since Apple introduced Activation Lock and Find My, for example. Yes, there still are professionals shipping stolen devices off to China to be parted out and yes, I think we should hold China accountable because there's more than enough evidence at that point, but still, it has drastically cut back on the everyday thefts and robberies.
Same thing along supply chains. A container full of expensive things, no matter if it's drones, laptops, phones or sneakers, is a very attractive thing for insiders - but devices needing activation are, assuming a supply chain able to track serial numbers of devices inside containers, effectively worthless other than for parts and Apple is even cutting in on that "market". In contrast, you have routine train heists for millions of dollars worth in sneakers [1].
For drones specifically, accountability. Governments are sick and tired of consumer drones flown by morons completely ignoring the law. There's old models without remote-id still around from the old days, but eventually these will all die out and by then, law enforcement has at least some way of holding people accountable.
[1] https://www.sneakerfreaker.com/news/la-train-heist-sneakers-...
So people planning attacks and disruptions and unauthorized surveillance will have to buy drones made in the USA?
(It’s important to distinguish it from the “buy drone-as-weapon at US retail, use drone inside US” threat model, but beyond telling them apart, I have no position prepared on the relevance of either model.)
It would likely be an obvious act of war, but technically it wouldn’t be that hard to pull off.
pure idiocy.
It's not either-or, it should be both.
By the way, nobody makes consumer drone batteries in the US that I know of.
Having Chinese drones in the sky is a risk. Having a dependency on their supply is another risk.
Source? My understanding is that Ukrainian drones are pretty much 100% off-the-shelf Chinese components.
I'm not speaking about bigger - mid-range and long-range drones - they use no Chinese, and sometimes no US-made (for the same reasons), components.
https://motor-g.com/en this company alone produces 100K motors per month now - enough to equip around 7-8% of 4M of quad copters Ukraine makes annually.
They were not previously subject to FCC certification, therefore none are certified, which means none can be imported now.
https://www.fcc.gov/supplychain/coveredlist
The new addition: Uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and UAS critical components produced in a foreign country†† and all communications and video surveillance equipment and services listed in Section 1709(a)(1) of the FY25 National Defense Authorization Act (Pub. L. 118-159)
††: For purposes of inclusion of UAS and UAS critical components, we incorporate the definitions included in the associated National Security Determination
https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/National-Security-De...
Data transmission devices
Communications systems
Flight controllers
Ground control stations and UAS controllers
Navigation systems
Sensors and Cameras
Batteries and Battery Management Systems
Motors"https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/drone-company...
Edit to add: From additional reporting on the issue, it seems that the answer is yes, it will affect all countries
Shouldn't there been some sort of planning for a local company to provide at least comparable products before needlessly wreaking havoc like this ?
On the other hand, Donald Trump Jr. recently acquired an interest in a US drone company, which is selling drone motors to the US military for what seems a high price.
The obvious corollary is that Canada, Greenland & Denmark (Panama, Venezuela, etc. too) and all their allies should get rid of all Windows computers, all Apple phones, all Tesla, etc, etc.
It's hard to imagine USA are not planning attacks right now using these tech vectors, given this threat model is being defended against in this way.
It was as equally clever as it was evil to put pressure on us to ditch Chinese tech, so USA can now attack us.
NDAA has been a saving grace that we have anything like https://arkelectron.com/
Frankly, they should just rip the bandaid off and apply it to robotics like robovacs/delivery bots/etc scanning homes/offices/critical infrastructure at this point.
However, I unfortunately am well-aware of a company that made these parts on U.S. soil.
I’d be wary of ANY manufacturer of significance within the U.S. that has never had and will never have foreign ties or be influenced by foreign powers that the U.S. in engaged against.
The manufacturer I’m aware of was a shitshow with everything that would be important to the military, except for the actual making of the parts, which they were excellent at, at least in certain parts of the company.
So because of this, I have to assume that this is a fundamentally ignorant plan to try to nationalize manufacturing for defense, and I’d expect nothing less from our current administration.