DJI Officially BANNED! Is this the end of Drones in the USA?

DJI just got banned in the United

States. Yep, you heard me correctly. The

FCC just banned not only the drone

manufacturer DJI, but all foreign drone

manufacturers. So, let's talk about how

this day will change the game for

foreignmade drones, for hobbyists,

commercial drone pilots, and not to

mention all the municipalities that have

gotten to rely on aerial support as part

of their day-to-day operations. So,

before we dive into the details, let me

throw out the cliffnotes for those of

you who just want to get it bottom line.

All right. So,

no future models of DJI drones or

potentially foreign drones are going to

be made available in the USA. You can

still fly your existing drones without

fear. So, don't worry about that. And

you should still be able to buy existing

DJI drone models um and other foreign

drone models uh that are already FCC

licensed. And they should be able to be

imported as well. This isn't going to

have any real impact for most of us for

several years into the future, at least

for those who want to make money or are

already planning on making money with

drones. And unfortunately, this appears

to be very politically motivated, which

has some pros and cons, and I'll explain

that later. Now, this also creates a

neverbeforeseen opportunity for people

to make money with their drones, at

least the ones that are willing to take

advantage of it. So, that being said,

let's dive into some of the details

about this stuff. All right. So, the

FCC, the Federal Communications

Commission, which is the body

responsible for regulating interstate

and international communications by

radio, television, satellite, um, in the

United States. And they're also in

charge of licensing anything that has a

wireless signal. So, a microphone, an

action camera, um, a drone, anything

like that. So this decision to ban all

foreign made drones uh this just went

into effect today. So this decision

significantly impacts DJI drones which

is the largest supplier of drones in the

United States. And DJI is a Chinese

company and they're really the 900 lb

gorilla in the commercial drone space

especially here in the United States.

Um, and this goes all the way back to

2013 when they first came on the scene

with the Phantom 1. They basically just

ruled the roost. Now, their drones,

they're super popular around the globe

and are well known for their

photography, their reliability, their

safety, and their videography abilities.

Um, and they're heavily used by

professionals not only in film and

television production, but industrial

applications and commercial

applications, as well as hobbyists and

amateurs. have fun with them. Now, the

nature of this ban is very comprehensive

and DJI and soon to be other foreign

drone companies are now officially

listed on the covered list, which

prevents them from getting any new FCC

licenses. And this is for future

products. So essentially this is banning

both the sales and importing of foreign

made drones at least future FCC licenses

that have not been granted are what

we're talking about here. So the FCC

they cite national security concerns as

the reason for the ban. Although the

primary target is Chinese-made drones,

the ban specifically states and extends

to all foreignade drones. And this move

is set to stimulate the American

domestic drone industry. And uh this

move, it's positioned the American drone

dominance,

but in my opinion, it really makes the

United States look the total opposite of

dominant. Look, I'm a big free market

guy, and I believe in the idea of let

the best be the best. And in this case,

let the best drone win. Let the

marketplace, let you and I decide with

our dollars voting which drone is the

best. And we have unanimously over the

last 10 years and it has been clearly

DJI. So much so DJI has so much of the

market share that second place in the

United States has less than 5% of the

market share.