FLYING Magazine
Operators and casual users of commercially available drones may soon need to pay more for their preferred models or switch to American-made alternatives.
The White House on Thursday proclaimed new tariffs on foreign-made drones and their components that possess capabilities it deems “particularly sensitive for national security purposes.” That includes a 100 percent ad valorem tariff on drones with maximum takeoff weight above 55 pounds or that have “certain capabilities,” such as thermal imaging.
Hobbyist drone pilots typically fly drones weighing under 55 pounds, the FAA’s cap for a model to be considered a small uncrewed aircraft system (UAS). But the 100 percent import duty would affect larger drones used for commercial purposes, such as crop spraying.
Smaller drones with “capabilities that particularly implicate national security” also face a 25 percent levy. The tariff on drones and components made in Japan, Liechtenstein, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, and the European Union is capped at 15 percent. Products built in the U.K. are limited to a 10 percent levy.
The duties impact even drones and components exempted from the Federal Communication Commission’s covered list of products banned for import and sale in the U.S. The FCC in December added all drones and components produced in foreign countries to the covered list but has since carved out exceptions such as for those on the Pentagon’s Blue List of cleared UAS.
“As the national security threats can be part and parcel of electronic infrastructure, we’ve been inserting some national security checks in that process,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in July at an industry summit in Washington, D.C. “That’s the covered list.”
The tariffs will take effect by September 4, or 21 days after the proclamation was signed. New fees for drone components that are “not particularly sensitive” will be collected within 180 days of signing.
President Donald Trump’s administration has used national security as a rationale to restrict the import and sale of foreign drones, and this week’s proclamation adopts the same reasoning.
Per the document, the new tariffs stem from a report, produced by U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, that argued that the U.S. is too reliant on foreign drone supply chains and faces “security and safety risks” from foreign UAS.
“Such products pose an information technology security risk because their software allows data to be sent back to the manufacturer in a foreign country, which can then be exploited by the government of that foreign country,” the proclamation claims.
The document also frames U.S. reliance on foreign producers and the lack of a robust, domestic base of manufacturers as a national security concern. It directs Lutnick to create an “onshoring program for companies making new investments in manufacturing drones and drone components.”
China’s DJI holds an estimated 70-80 percent share of the global market for consumer drones, including a large share of the U.S. market.
“Since we put drones on the covered list, we’ve seen, newly, over $4 billion flow into drone and drone-related companies here in the U.S.,” said Carr. “That’s something like hundreds of thousands of square feet of manufacturing plant, thousands of jobs that have been added by creating an environment in which insecure drones are kept out, and there’s some protections to invest domestically.”
The Trump family has ties to U.S. drone manufacturers. The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., sits on the advisory board of Florida-based Unusual Machines. Trump Jr. also holds millions of dollars in the company’s stock, which according to Forbes rose more than 14 percent in early trading Friday.
The Washington Post in July reported that Trump Jr. and his brother, Eric Trump, have invested in or advised at least four drone makers that have since received government contracts.
Restricting Foreign Drones
The U.S. has long sought to restrict the flow of foreign-produced drones into the country, to the chagrin of many users.
UAS and components produced in China, Russia, and other nations the U.S. considers adversarial are banned at the Department of Defense and other federal agencies. More recently, the government has sought to restrict their presence in the commercial market.
The White House has made the drone issue a key focus. In June 2025, it issued two executive orders that outlined its priorities, including national security reviews of imported products and incentives to spur more domestic manufacturing.
Carr in July clarified that foreign drones’ addition to the FCC’s covered list “means new models of a particular technology or service cannot be imported or marketed in the U.S.”
“Existing models can continue to be built and bought,” Carr said. “If you have a product, you can continue to use it.”
He added that the FCC cannot “reach in and pull things out of the hands of consumers.”
However, the agency can incentivize drone users to pivot away from foreign models, such as by banning the latest equipment upgrades—or increasing their prices using tariffs.
The FCC’s December covered list additions only impact the import and sale of models produced after they took effect. But the agency is now taking aim at drones it has previously authorized.
In July, the FCC proposed banning the import and sale of drone products it authorized prior to December. The rule would affect devices and components that are “military grade,” leaving plenty of room for interpretation of what exactly that means.
Carr said the proposal targets drones capable of “aerosol dispersion and applications, LIDAR drones over 50 pounds, [and] swarming drones,” such as those used in light shows.
“You can only imagine the national security threat that comes when you have these coordinated swarming drones that are doing a fantastic light show,” he said.
Commercial and professional drone operators largely oppose the restrictions.
Per a white paper published in January by The Pilot Institute, an online aviation training provider, 70 percent of more than 8,000 respondents said they operate drone fleets that are fully DJI, and 97 percent said they use at least one of the company’s drones. More than 43 percent said their business could shutter if the covered list restrictions remain in place, including more than half of agriculture, public safety, and utility operators.
About 47 percent of drone pilots surveyed said they support targeted restrictions on foreign drones, but only for sensitive government or critical infrastructure uses.
Carr said adding DJI and other drones to the covered list “sends a clear early signal to the market that says, listen, as a long term matter, you’ve got to onshore this stuff.”
“President Trump is really seeing a couple years in the future, because we don’t want to be in a situation where five years from now, 10 years from now, we say we should not have completely offshored the production of this thing that is going to be critical economically, national security-wise.”