It bans the import, but not sale of models the FCC has previously approved.

>> banning future drones

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 goal (assuming rational policy) is improving security over time.

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.

The grandfathering clause is the tell. If these drones were an active national security threat, they wouldn't let civilians keep flying them.

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...

Well this would be step one to try to motivate some US company to start manufacturing. Then once it ramps up they can step in with banning existing stuff without causing too much disruption.

It’s like a poorly executed form of protectionism. I guess they’re doing the best they can, can’t expect people unfit for office to create good policy, right.

Well.. DJI have on-the-fly no fly zone update, and newer model can communicate via satellite.

That's worse if you believe there are possibility of war...

Oh no, what will we do without cheap Chinese drones spying on us

If it was phased in and didn't specifically include allied country imports, I could believe that.

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.

Skydio? For a while they were #2 in consumer drones but found they couldn't compete with DJI and exited the consumer market in 2023. They now do > 50% of their business for the U.S. military and are in tight with the U.S. government. Could be a plan to re-enter the consumer market, this time with no competition.

> some US manufacturer that slipped a few thousand dollars

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.

Rotor Riot sells a flight controller made in USA. Donald Trump Jr. is on the advisory board of Unusual Machines that owns Rotor Riot.

So now in addition to snuggling fentanyl they'll also be smuggling the drones. Twofer.