Dji Is… Happy That the White House Will Decide Next Week on Whether To Ban Its Drones?

DJI just can’t catch a break. As the US and China hurtle toward increasingly sharpened confrontation, the leader of consumer drones in the US—China’s DJI—could find itself banned from operating in the US, thanks to US government suspicions about its links with China’s ruling Communist Party.

In a letter from this past March, DJI’s Head of Global Policy Adam Welsh published a letter saying, “I write to request that any or all of your agencies begin this required evaluation of DJI’s products right away.” Well, DJI, you got your wish.

The White House plans a review of DJI’s activities as early as next week, according to The Washington Post.

suspicious minds

Back on December 18, 2024, the U.S. Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which contained a provision that requires DJI prove to an “appropriate national security agency” within one year that its products don’t pose a national security risk to the U.S.

The American government has been increasingly concerned in recent years over whether off-the-shelf consumer goods could potentially pass on sensitive data about their users in a way that would pose a national security threat.

China’s Communist Party exercises a tight grip on the activities of private Chinese companies when it wants to, which worries Washington. Official American scrutiny has fallen on a slew of Chinese companies lately: Huawei, TikTok, TP-Link, and, of course, DJI.

As I wrote in an earlier post covering the news last December, “the provision in the NDAA stipulates that not only would DJI be banned from selling new drones should it be unable to satisfactorily prove to the U.S. that they’re not a security risk, but DJI products would be unable to connect to US networks and the FCC would deauthorize their internal radios from being allowed to broadcast in the U.S. Who knows if the FCC would care enough to go after current DJI owners, though.”

DJI isn’t lacking for confidence that they’ll pass the US government’s test. “DJI is confident that its products can withstand your strictest scrutiny,” wrote Welsh in his letter. “We are confident not only because we have nothing to hide, but because independent firms and other U.S. government agencies have repeatedly validated and confirmed that DJI’s products are secure.”