Comment by dji4321234
14 days ago
HAHA. DJI drones are amongst the most popular tools of war in the Ukraine conflict. Sometimes they drop bombs directly, but more commonly they're used as long-ranged lookout stations and RF-repeater "hovering motherships" for bomb-equipped one-way FPV drone operators (as well as just general reconnaissance tasks).
That said, I don't think this law has anything to do with war, just simple economic protectionism driven by Skydio and other US drone lobbyists. Getting rid of DJI's excellent $7,000 enterprise drones lets Skydio sell their $15,000 + cloud-subscription enterprise drones instead.
Of course DJI drones are used for conflict, however you have to circumvent the measures that DJI has taken to prevent this, DJI is not selling them for use in conflicts.
https://www.skydio.com/solutions/defense
Sure, but DJI drones already weren't eligible for procurement in US defense anyway, so there's not a major net change there (barring weird edge case loopholes with third-party modifications). Skydio already got their protectionism in the federal space, this is a step beyond.