Chinese-made drones remain one of the federal government’s The Big Bogeymen. Now, House lawmakers are making another effort to ban Chinese-made drones.
The House Committee on China says the U.S. government should stop using any drones from China, Financial Times first heard Wednesday. This bill, called the U.S. Security Drone Act, was brought to the floor Wednesday. It is being spearheaded by a bipartisan group of committee representatives who are consistently upset about Chinese drones being used around the world not only for commercial purposes but also in modern warfare. The bill would prevent any federal agency from buying more technology that some intelligence leaders say could affect national security.
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) told the Financial Times that Chinese drone purchases support [the People’s Republic of China’s] “malign behavior” while “Posing a serious national security threat to the United States and our allies.”
As described in the report, the new bill is a copy of an earlier effort by Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Rick Scott (R-FL). That legislation is a rider to the Senate version of the upcoming defense spending bill.
Efforts to ban Chinese drones are an issue across party lines, and it has also spilled over into some states. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis backed a Florida bill banning drones from China, especially Shenzhen-based DJI. The thing is, local police use these Chinese drones, and were quite upset about being forced to buy defective U.S.-made drones instead.
DJI is still the big unspoken bear keeping security officials awake at night. DJI accounts for about 90% of the commercial drone market in the U.S. It has become a among state and local law enforcement, as well as federal agencies. The company continues to claim it has no ties to Beijing, although U.S. lawmakers cite how drones have been used by Russia during the ongoing war in Ukraine and now in the ongoing conflict with Israel and the West Bank.
Fear of these large communist drones is not new. U.S. security officials have been warning about Chinese drones for years. DJI is already on several of the Biden administration’s Investment Blacklists. Some agencies such as the U.S. Department of the Interior have banned the purchase of Chinese-made drones.
Concerns arise over whether the drones could be sending information to the Shenzhen-based company and whether that information will then be collected by The Chinese government. DJI has routinely said the drones can fly without connecting to the Internet.
The U.S. is still on a kick from Chinese tech companies, especially ByteDance, which owns TikTok. While several state governments and federal agencies have banned the social app on government devices, Congress has yet to pass any stringent legislation on the Chinese company.