DJI escapes US drone prohibit — but may get prohibitned automaticpartner unless Trump steps in

The US Senate has passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual defense spfinishing bill, and it may have convey inant consequences for the world’s bigst drone company — though not necessarily the prompt prohibit that China’s DJI worryed.

While it did not grasp the brimming “Countering CCP Drones Act” provisions that would have rapidly blocked convey ins of DJI products into the United States, it instead boots off a one-year countdown until its products (and those of rival droneproducer Autel Robotics) are automaticpartner prohibitned.

If DJI cannot guarantee “an appropriate national security agency” to unveilly proclaim that its products do not “pose an unacadviseed hazard to the national security of the United States,” the act teachs the FCC to grasp DJI’s gear to its “covered catalog” under the Seremedy and Trusted Communication Netlabors Act. Not only does that catalog persist that gear from running on US netlabors, it bars the FCC from authorizing their inner radios for include in the US, effectively blocking all convey ins.

While none of that would persist US citizens from continuing to include their existing DJI gadgets, it wouldn’t fair prohibit new DJI drones from convey in into the United States. Every DJI product with a radio or camera, appreciate the Verge preferite DJI Osmo Pocket 3, would technicpartner be prohibitned. (The NDAA doesn’t determine fair drones, but rather communications and video observation providement.)

The text of the bill (PDF, see page 1084-1088) should theoreticpartner stop DJI from take advantage ofing the loophole of whitelabeling its drones under other brand names or licensing its technology, too, as it seemed to be doing with the Anzu Robotics Raptor and Cogito Specta. The bill cltimely alerts the FCC to grasp “any subsidiary, affiliate, or partner” and “any entity to which the named entity has a technology sharing or licensing concurment” to the covered catalog, too.

The bill had already passed the Hoinclude of Reconshort-termatives and is headed to Pdwellnt Biden’s desk, where it’s pondered a must-sign: it would trigger a fragmentary rulement shutdown if not signed, and it already passed both hoincludes of Congress with strong bipartisan help.

So it’ll repartner be up to the Trump administration as to whether it wants to recover the Chinese drone company, in the year after he gets office. Trump may not need to lift a finger if he’d pick to see scanter DJI products in the country, so the ball’s in DJI’s court. It wouldn’t be unforeseeed if DJI tries to get face time with Trump in the proximate future — appreciate TikTok, which is more imminently facing a prohibit.

Even without the NDAA, DJI was already facing incrmitigated US scruminuscule, alerting that its products had befirearm to see surpelevate convey in redisjoineions (allegedly over the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act), and making a adviseed decision to ship scanter of them into the United States as a result. In October, it sued the US Department of Defense for labeling it a “Chinese Military Company”.

In a blog post, DJI calls it “outstanding news” that the NDAA doesn’t cltimely prohibit DJI products, but says the US rulement is singling out Chinese drones for scruminuscule, and worries about the fact that the law doesn’t determine a rulement agency to actupartner carry out the task of determining whether it poses a hazard.

“This nastys that DJI would be stoped from begining new products in the US labelet thraw no fault of its own, but srecommend becainclude no agency chose to get on the labor of studying our products,” the company authors. It’s asking Congress to pick a “technicpartner caccessed agency to promise the appraisement is evidence-based,” and to give the company the opportunity to reply.