This would apply to drones purchased by the United States government. The Pentagon has been banned from buying Chinese drones since 2019. DJI with over 50% of the US market share makes the some of the best drones and there are no US manufacturers that currently offer similar products. Maybe this legislation, if it passes, will push along a US market for drone production.
Being from an area that was destroyed by offshoring. The idea of bringing back manufacturing jobs both for security reasons and for good paying middle class jobs is fantastic! It’s a slow process, but seems we are at least slowly moving in that direction. Having more middle class citizens means more people can afford to pay for goods that aren’t made with slave labor or items that aren’t going to steal all your information. The better off more people are, the happier they will be to spend their money on American goods.
If we are being honest, this law does basically nothing for security, but it does pump some tax money into American manufacturers, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It would be cool if we had a legitimate consumer grade USA-made drone that was priced at a level where one is not afraid to actually put it in the air.
Either way, there is plenty of time before it is enacted to see who wants to put the most money into lobbying.
I like this guy’s breakdown of the issue…
and you know that how?
Have you read it? Virtually every federal agency that would use a drone is exempted. And there is also an option for waiver. Plus it doesn’t take effect for two years after enactment, and sunsets in five years.
Then why do they have it [the law]?
Mostly virtue signaling I suppose. That and maybe to feed some tax money to US drone makers like Skydio so they can catch up to the drone race.
I think you read it wrong.
Could be. Maybe the exemptions were mostly designed to allow purchases of Chinese drones for our own “spying” purposes, like reverse engineering and technical “borrowing.”
Nonetheless, I hope this somehow spurs development of viable, affordable drones in our own country.
IMO preventing Chinese drones from entering the US market is not the way to go, what should be done is not only investing in American manufacturing, but also place large tariffs on all goods entering the U.S. that were made in China. This would allow American Companies to be able to compete with the products produced with Chinese child/slave labor.
Up to a point id agree with you. Tarifs should be imposed on Mexican products to force immigration policies in Mexico (maybe bring home some manufacturing). Chinese drones should be kept off US shores because of their snooping ability (all drones report location, they also have the capacity to report visuals). All Chinese companies are owned and controlled by the Chinese government. As far as manufacturing goes, the USA has limited their own ability due to EPA restrictions. Should we need productive capacity for self defense (as in WW2) we don’t have it. This is a major problem with our participation in the “global” marketplace.
Nice to see DJI self-policing on data privacy.