The Man Building America's Drone Systems

Well, speaking of scale, speaking of making things viable, let's talk about the current state of the U.S. drone industry, specifically something that's really active in the listener community right now, which is as of December.

You know what? I'm going to let you talk about it.

You're far more educated on the issue, but let's put it simply.

What are the U.S.'s current restrictions on foreign drone technology?

Well, as you said, as of December 22nd, 2025, the FCC came through with some things that had been talked about for a long time as technology that would be restricted.

And it's called the covered list.

And the FCC actually went broader with it than I think people were expecting in their December 22nd action.

And that is to ban all foreign made drones and critical components from receiving FCC approval for use in the United States.

So as you know, any electronic device that has a radio in it, a drone has a radio and it needs to apply for FCC approval and get FCC ID number.

And so that had been the mechanism that kind of drones were being approved under.

And now with that covered list, that means that new models of DJI and other foreign-made drones will not be given approval.

So that means that the foreign drone companies are going to have a lot harder time accessing the U.S. market.

Now they can potentially come to the U.S. and set up production and work with the FCC and meet the requirements that they want.

But others will probably have, some of the Chinese makers will probably have a pretty tough time doing that because the The regulation kind of explicitly came from different committees working on Capitol Hill that were concerned about national security and specifically the development and advancement of drones made by the People's Republic of China.

And so I don't think that it's very likely that Chinese makers will be... easily able to get a FCC ID, but perhaps other countries that are more allied nations will be able to set up shop in the U.S., make drones in the U.S. and help, you know, fill the gap that's been created.

But it was a broad, the covered list was broader and wider than I think most in the industry had expected.

It had been talked about, I'd say, for a good two plus years.

And people didn't speculate what happened, what did not happen, a lot of back and forth.

And then and then it dropped on.

So it's the rule of the law of the land now.