Administration Sets Lofty Goal to Ramp Up U.S. Drone Production
By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill
With its two recent executive orders the Trump administration has set a lofty goal of establishing the United States as a world leader in drone manufacturing.
Industry leaders praised the administration’s ambitious agenda, which includes: expediting the creation of the long-awaited Part 108 Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) rule; establishing a drone supply chain free from foreign control or exploitation; directing all federal agencies to prioritize the purchase of American-made UAVs; and tearing down regulatory barriers standing in the way of export of U.S.-manufactured drones.
The challenge is daunting, as the U.S. currently confronts a seemingly insurmountable head start in drone production by global market leader China. “Companies based in China and subsidized by the Chinese government control 90% of the consumer drone market, 70% or more of the enterprise market, and 92% of the state and local first responder market,” according to a statement by the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI).
Yet drone manufacturers and industry experts think the U.S. industry is up to the challenge, providing the federal agencies and congressional budget appropriators follow through on the administration’s aggressive roadmap for industry growth.
“I think first and foremost, it’s really promising to have the administration be focusing on the drone industry. It’s a really critical tool and it’s been sad that the U.S. has been behind in production capacity in this space,” David Benowitz, vice president of strategy and marketing communications for domestic drone producer BRINC.
Benowitz said the twin executive orders, which seek to encourage growth of U.S. drone production through “updated economic policies and regulation, coordinated trade, financing and foreign engagement tools,” are more likely to have an impact on the production of UAVs and associated technology produced for military uses than for the commercial drone industry.
One of the orders, Unleashing American Drone Dominance, calls for the expansion of the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Blue UAS list to include all drones and critical drone components compliant with 2020’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is expected to open up the military’s market for defense-related drones that may not meet the current Blue UAS list’s more restrictive standards.
The proposed changes will likely have a more profound effect on BRINC’s competitors than on BRINC itself, which already complies with the tougher regulations, Benowitz said.
“We’re kind of ahead in that regard. Other companies are going to be transitioning from getting components abroad or getting components specifically from adversary nations, to getting them locally or from allied nations. We’ve already made those steps to do it,” he said.
Jordan Beyer, vice president of operations of U.S.-based drone and software producer Skyfish, said the Blue UAS List vetting process has been slow and under-resourced, and he welcomed the creation of a faster vetting process that could efficiently admit more NDAA-compliant drones.
“President Trump’s Unleashing American Drone Dominance is the order for the DIU [Defense Innovation Unit] Blue UAS List to include all drones compliant with Section 8448 of NDAA FY 2020, which includes SkyFish. Admission to the Blue UAS List is critical for SkyFish and other American-made drones and opens opportunities for a larger pool of drone manufacturers in the DOD and federal markets,” he said.
Order calls for revising DOD’s drone procurement process
Another section of the same order, which aims modernize the DOD’s drone procurement process, is likely to boost the development and sale of U.S. drones to the military, said Brendan Stewart, vice president of regulatory affairs for UAV producer Red Cat Holdings.
“These orders break the barriers that we see interfering with that demand cycle on the DOD side by accelerating procurements, directing federal agencies to prioritize American-made drones,” he said. “As part of this executive order we see that the administration is pushing towards modernizing that procurement cycle and modernizing our ability to do things like foreign military sales.”
Stewart said the order’s strategy of incentivizing the production of U.S. drones marks a better approach to reducing demand for Chinese-made drones than an outright country-of-origin ban.
“We think some legislation could go further, but this is a great balance between preventing massive disruptions to the user base, while also driving the conditions necessary to build an American industrial base for UAS, both for civilian use for the warfighter,” he said.
Bill Irby, CEO of agricultural and dual use drone producer AgEagle, said the order’s emphasis on making more drone test sites available to producers will be a key factor in bringing new drone products to market. “FAA, shall ensure all FAA UAS Test Ranges are fully utilized to support the development, testing and scaling of American drone technologies,” the order states.
“More test access means faster access to the market,” Irby said.
He predicted that the executive orders would result in increased market demand for U.S.-made drone technology, which in turn would lead to a round of consolidation within the diffuse drone manufacturing industry.
He cited the recent Xponential 2025 event in Houston, which featured a large number of relatively small drone technology companies.
“Lots of companies were there demonstrating their stuff,” he said. “Some of them are very mature, some of them less so. My belief is that some of these are going to get gobbled up and execute mergers and acquisitions with other companies. I see that coming within the next year or two.”
Read more:
- Explained: What Trump’s Executive Orders on Drones Mean for U.S. Exports
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- Trump Issues Executive Orders on Drones
Jim Magill is a Houston-based writer with almost a quarter-century of experience covering technical and economic developments in the oil and gas industry. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P Global Platts, Jim began writing about emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robots and drones, and the ways in which they’re contributing to our society. In addition to DroneLife, Jim is a contributor to Forbes.com and his work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, U.S. News & World Report, and Unmanned Systems, a publication of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.
It’s not just R&D, Engineering and final assembly. The US in general has lost many of it manufacturing capability and corporate know-how in things like tooling, machining, fabrication of many plastics. All of these processes are performed outside the US, and the cost to re-tool America is high. The cost to produce the materials in America is high. The standard of living (cost of living) is higher in the US and for each and every one of these processes the higher labor costs multiplies on itself. So anything “Made in America” involving any form of serious manufacturing will be 2-4 times as expensive.
So, where it is needed (e.g., defense, security, etc.) and the government is paying for it, place all of the restrictions you want. But where that is not needed (Prosumer, municipal public service, volunteering SAR, recreation, etc.) set cybersecurity standards that EVERY country must meet and let the markets compete.