The depths of China’s penetration of critical high-tech industries — and the difficulties the U.S. faces in loosening Beijing’s grip — were on vivid display on Capitol Hill this month as lawmakers wrestled with how to combat China’s dominance of the global drone market.
Senate Armed Services Committee drafters quietly dropped a provision from the massive national defense authorization bill — considered one of the very few must-pass bills lawmakers will take up this year — that effectively banned Chinese-made commercial drones from entering the U.S. market, in the face of strong lobbying by American farm groups and others who say an immediate prohibition would be disastrous for their operations.
The House version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), approved last month in the Republican-led chamber, included the ban by incorporating the Countering [Chinese Communist Party] Drones Act into the bill. The two versions must be reconciled before the overall bill can get to President Biden’s desk.
The dilemma for U.S. farmers, public safety agencies, police departments and large numbers of commercial drone users: China is by far the world’s leading exporter of drones and a single company, Shenzhen-based Da Jiang Innovations (DJI), supplies nearly 80% of the U.S. market. The idea that the U.S. or allied countries could fill the gap in a short period of time, they say, is flatly unrealistic.
“We’re an American company and we support American [drone] manufacturers,” Jeremy Schniederman, CEO of DroneNerds.com, a consulting firm for agricultural and other companies on drone use, told the publication AgFunderNews.com. “But our job is to provide our customers with the best solution to get their spraying done,” he said. “Today those solutions happen to be non-American solutions, and we would be doing a disservice to our customers by bringing them products with fewer features, that are less reliable, and are three times the price.”
Government agencies and private companies use DJI drones for missions as varied as surveillance operations, land management and tracking wildfires. On farms, the DJI drones can apply pesticides and herbicides more effectively and with more precision than traditional crop-dusting techniques, advocates say.
DJI officials called the Senate’s apparent decision to drop the drone ban language in its version of the NDAA was a “positive development,” but acknowledged the fight isn’t over.
“The lawmakers driving this legislation continue to reference inaccurate and unsubstantiated allegations regarding DJI’s operations, and have amplified xenophobic narratives in a quest to support local drone manufacturers and eliminate market competition,” DJI said in a company blog.
Government links
But it is DJI’s very market dominance that has many worried, and the close links between major Chinese companies and the Communist regime in Beijing have only amplified those fears. The security concerns, they argue, should trump any temporary disruption to drone supply markets in the U.S.
“Congress must use every tool at our disposal to stop Communist China’s monopolistic control over the drone market and telecommunications infrastructure and build up America’s industrial capacity,” Rep. Elise Stefanik, New York Republican, said in March when she introduced the bill.
The current NDAA provision on drones in the Senate committee draft do require a Defense Department task force to review counter-drone activities and develop a strategy for counter-drone technology. The Senate version also provides more funding for developing new design and manufacturing techniques for low-cost drones and an artificial intelligence program for the systems.
DJI and U.S. commercial drone users warn that the Countering CCP Drones Act not only blocks new DJI products from entering the U.S. market, and could also lead to the revocation of FCC authorization for the use of Chinese-made drones already being used.
“If this passes, U.S. operators would no longer be able to access new DJI drones, and their existing drone fleets may even need to be grounded,” the company said in a statement after the bill was first introduced.
But bill backers say the ban focuses primarily on the market moving forward and that fears the federal government would move to block the use of Chinese-made drones already in use in the U.S. are overblown.
Proponents of the measure also cite a 2017 report by the Homeland Security Department’s investigative arm that assessed with “moderate confidence” that DJI was providing U.S. critical infrastructure and law enforcement data to Beijing. The agency “further assesse[d] with high confidence the company is selectively targeting government and privately owned entities within these sectors to expand its ability to collect and exploit sensitive U.S. data.”
“If America is to prevail in this era of great power competition, the U.S. government cannot be using drones manufactured by our adversaries,” said Rep. Rob Wittman, Virginia Republican.
The legislation would add DJI to a “covered list” maintained by the Federal Communications Commission, effectively blocking the company’s drones from running on communications infrastructure in the U.S.
Drones and de-coupling
The clash provides a window into the intensifying debate in the U.S. over whether and how to “de-couple” or “de-risk” the American and Chinese economies, at a time when the two nations are engaged in a fierce economic and military rivalry but also continue to trade hundreds of billions of dollars of goods and services every year.
Both the Trump and the Biden administrations have moved to curb or cut off Chinese companies in telecommuncations, computer chips, electric vehicles and other cutting-edge technologies from unfettered access to the U.S. market.
But DJI argues it is the market leader not because of its government’s clout or financial backing but because it created the commercial and consumer drone segment with the 2013 release of its DJI Phantom model.
“Since then, we have helped spur the emergence of today’s vibrant U.S. drone ecosystem, and have invested heavily in robust safety and security initiatives along the way,” the company said. “This is why operators continue to rely on our products today.”
Public safety agencies that rely on drones for their operations also reached out to the Senate Armed Services Committee to oppose the China drone restrictions. They said the act would compromise their ability to respond to emergencies.
Relying on “unproven alternatives” to established Chinese drone technology was both impractical and dangerous, according to a statement released by advocacy groups including the Airborne Public Safety Association and the Law Enforcement Drone Association.
“Simply put, we have not reached parity with China’s drone technology,” the groups said in their joint statement.
U.S. agricultural interests were so concerned about the possibility of a ban or near-ban of Chinese drones that several rival companies have banded together to form a coalition to lobby Congress against the move.
Critics of the drones accused DJI of collecting vast amounts of sensitive data, from high-resolution images of critical U.S. infrastructure to facial recognition technology. The company insists its drones don’t collect photos or videos by default.
Some analysts consider DJI a security threat despite the popularity of their drones in the consumer and commercial sectors. Irina Tsukerman, a New York-based geopolitical analyst, said intelligence reports point to a “high possibility” that Chinese technology in drones and other types of tech could be used for espionage.
“Collection of private and public data could assist Chinese efforts in achieving technological and military dominance against the U.S., and could also be used to target American citizens and industries in other areas,” she told the Associated Press.
It wasn’t immediately clear when the House and Senate versions of the 2025 NDAA will be reconciled. The full Senate still must vote on the Armed Services Committee draft before negotiations can begin.
In Beijing, there are signs that Chinese officials are enjoying the difficulties their American counterparts are facing trying to block Chinese-made drones without harming important sectors of the economy.
“I believe the [Senate’s] action wasn’t merely a goodwill gesture; rather, it reflects the reality that there hasn’t been a suitable alternative found in the realm of drones to replace Chinese products,” Zhou Mi, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the government-linked Global Times news website Tuesday.