Over the last few years, debates and discourse regarding Chinese companies and their existence in the US has grown considerably loud. There have been endless discussions over whether TikTok should be able to be downloaded and used on American smartphones, and in 2022, smartphone company Huawei was totally banned from selling its phones and products in the US, along with ZTE. The Huawei ban took years to fully come to fruition, and if TikTok is fully banned, it would follow that years-long process that started around 2020. Global tensions are high, and with drones being in the news lately for a myriad of reasons, DJI has grown into focus even more as it faces bans of its own.

Today, the US Senate passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), allocating 2025’s defense spending. While that did not include any provisions regarding the Countering CCP Drones Act, a bill introduced and passed to block DJI products’ sales and imports to the US, it doesn’t necessarily bring good news for the Chinese drone manufacturer’s future. DJI now has one year to prove that its products do not present a national security risk to the US, and if a US agency picks up DJI’s case and doesn’t believe DJI’s defense, the company will be banned stateside. If no national security agency picks up the case, DJI believes it will be banned regardless.

Banhammer in full force

Source: Unsplash

This is not the first time that DJI has faced the wrath of American lawmakers. Back in 2020, in the waning days of the first Donald Trump administration, DJI was placed on the Entity List alongside Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC) that prohibited US imports from taking place. That same year was when Huawei and ZTE were added to the list, too. Over the years, legal battles between DJI and the American government have kept the drone company in business in the US, but the Countering CCP Drones Act could obviously change the tide.

As previously mentioned, TikTok’s potential US ban could go into effect soon. On Jan. 19, 2025, TikTok will be banned, unless the ByteDance (TikTok’s owner) oral argument to the Supreme Court just nine days previously presents a solid case against the ban on First Amendment grounds. It’s unclear if a decision from the Supreme Court would come before the January 19 deadline, or if TikTok would be granted an administrative stay while a decision would be waited on. Just days ago, Canada implemented a federal ban on TikTok’s Canadian operations, effectively dismantling its offices within the country but not the app itself for citizens, a puzzling move for some.