Vic Moss, a professional photographer turned drone operator, has spent the past few months watching the temperature rise inside the 33,000 member Facebook group he runs for commercial drone pilots.
By Christmas, Chinese-made DJI drones could be blocked from entering the United States. The move would disrupt a $30 billion industry that has become reliant on the manufacturer.
“People are afraid,” Moss — the co-founder and CEO of the Drone Service Provider Alliance — said. “The way it’s working now is you’re guilty until proven innocent. It’s supposed to be the other way around.”
Due to perceived national security threats — unless Donald Trump intervenes — the federal government is poised to effectively cut off the world’s largest drone maker by December 23. DJI currently controls an estimated 75 percent of the global market. The de-facto ban would force government agencies, hobbyists, and commercial users to turn to pricier, less capable domestic alternatives, while creating a potential windfall for U.S.-based manufacturers.
The DJI ban is best understood as an echo of the TikTok national security fight. As TikTok is to creators, DJI hardware is integral to police departments, farmers, filmmakers, and small operators.
Over the past year, DJI has had shipments repeatedly seized by Customs and Border Protection under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. The company says it doesn’t use forced labor.
Then, in September 2024, the House attempted to officially ban the drones by adding them to the Federal Communications Commission’s Covered List — a clause in the FY2025 military spending bill last December kicked the process into gear.
Congress said they would study the Chinese-made drones over the next year through an audit to look for national security threats. But if no agency steps up to conduct the audit — as none has — an automatic ban goes into effect.
Despite the more than a year of warnings, U.S. drone makers are still not positioned to immediately fill the gap left by DJI.
“You can’t beat that price point, that reliability, that ease of use,” Moss said, especially in the sub-$1,500 consumer market.
Domestic competitors have largely failed to scale, particularly in the consumer and recreational segments where DJI dominates.
If the import ban goes through, the FCC has said it does not intend to recall drones already in circulation, but for those wanting to buy news drones, operating equipment without valid authorization remains a legal gray area, adding uncertainty for hobbyists and small businesses.
That anxiety is visible at DJI’s flagship Manhattan retail store, where one employee said drone pilots from across the country are coming in to stock up. Others have asked whether the store is going out of business or operating illegally. “We’re on Fifth Avenue,” he said with a smile.
That uncertainty is particularly acute for Alek Berberoglu, a young professional filmmaker based in New Jersey, who said a ban would hit just as he’s beginning to build his career.
“DJI is pretty much the industry standard right now,” he said. “Most of the drones filmmakers rely on for reliability, stability, and image quality are made by them.”
Switching would mean higher costs — often for worse performance — and a steep learning curve as filmmakers relearn flight systems, transmission tools, and safety features. “It slows down production and makes it harder to stay efficient on set,” he said. Worse, he fears the ban could lead producers to cut drone shots entirely. “It creates uncertainty during a time I’m trying to grow.”
Over the years, even large electronics companies like Sony and GoPro have struggled to compete with Chinese-made drones. And other domestic manufacturers — like Skydio who left the consumer market in 2023 — have gravitated toward government and military contracts, where margins are higher and procurement more predictable.
“Nobody wants to make a replacement for a [DJI] Mavic or an Air or an Inspire,” Moss, who has worked with drones for 13 years, said.
But the consumer drone market is still a multi-billion-dollar business, and many operators say they’ll struggle without access to DJI. A 2023 survey by the Drone Service Providers Alliance found that 67 percent of American drone operators said they would close their businesses without DJI products, given the current limits of American-made drones.
A 2024 Government Accountability Office report also expressed that replacing foreign-made drones outright comes with significant cost and delays. For the Department of Interior, drones meeting U.S. security standards now cost more than $14,000 per unit, up from roughly $2,600 in 2017 and some drones can take six months to arrive after ordering.
As agencies and businesses brace for those delays and costs, American companies stand to gain the most from a DJI ban.
American drone maker Skydio has emerged as a winner. Its drones are now deployed in “drone as first responder” police initiatives across the country. After spending $670,000 on lobbying in 2025, in November, Skydio secured another multimillion-dollar Pentagon contract, adding to ongoing work with the Departments of Agriculture and Interior.
The looming ban has also accelerated investment — and political interest — in U.S. drone companies. Andreessen Horowitz values Skydio at $2.2 billion and co-founder Marc Andreessen has called DJI “a potential surveillance platform by the Chinese Communist Party.” Index Ventures and Sequoia Capital have also backed U.S. drone startups like Brinc Drones and Neros Technologies.
Trump’s inner circle has edged closer to the industry as well. Donald Trump Jr. joined the advisory board of drone company Unusual Machines that saw its stock surge 900 percent in a month in 2024. Senator JD Vance continues to retain his stake in Anduril, the defense-focused drone maker he has championed publicly. And several Israeli drone companies have also opened up U.S. based locations over the past year.
Meanwhile, DJI is lobbying aggressively and asking politicians like House Speaker Mike Johnson to reconsider the ban, saying it will “destabilize a critical sector,” and urging a real audit of the technology. In another letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, DJI noted that more than 80 percent of the nation’s 1,800-plus state and local agencies with drone programs rely on its products.
Some GOP lawmakers oppose a full prohibition. Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman of Arkansas told Politico that DJI remains “the primary drone maker in the United States at a reasonable price.”
Stephen Smith, a recreational drone pilot in New Mexico who works closely with agricultural operators, believes farmers will eventually adapt regardless — citing adoption of million-dollar LaserWeeders and other high-cost equipment — but notes that DJI’s low prices accelerated adoption early on.
The ban itself still isn’t guaranteed — remember TikTok? The Trump administration could opt for heavy tariffs coupled with subsidies to encourage domestic production, a play more in line with the administration’s recent dealings with President Xi Jinping.
The industry is entering a high-stakes transition. Many U.S. manufacturers aren’t focused on the consumer or creative markets, leaving small businesses, freelancers, and hobbyists facing higher prices and reduced capabilities. DJI’s decade-long dominance has set expectations for cost, performance, and availability that domestic producers cannot immediately replicate.
“We’re not isolationist economies anymore,” Moss said. “There are some people that just can’t seem to get that through their thick skulls — what they want us to do is a logistical impossibility.”