As new foreign-made drones from brands like DJI remain effectively blocked from entering the US market, FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty is publicly defending the agency’s controversial decision to expand its “Covered List” of allegedly unsecure equipment to include foreign-manufactured drones and critical drone components.
Speaking at the SCSP AI+ Expo on Thursday, Trusty framed drones and artificial intelligence as the next major technological battleground — one where America cannot afford to fall behind or rely on foreign supply chains.
“The question before us today,” Trusty said, “is who will write the rules of a connected and intelligent airspace for drones and other aerial systems.”
Her speech comes at a sensitive moment for the US drone industry. New drones from DJI — still the dominant global consumer drone maker — have struggled to reach American customers amid growing regulatory scrutiny, customs issues, and FCC-related uncertainty. The FCC’s expansion of its Covered List last year intensified fears that Chinese-made drone technology could eventually face broader restrictions in critical infrastructure and government-related operations. Trusty made clear she believes those actions are necessary.
“Through tools such as the Covered List, the FCC is working to prevent insecure or untrusted equipment from being incorporated into critical infrastructure,” she said. “Last year, the FCC expanded that approach to drones, adding foreign-manufactured unmanned aircraft systems and critical components to the Covered List based on national security determinations.”
While she never mentioned DJI by name, the implications were obvious. DJI has repeatedly argued there is no evidence its drones pose a national security threat, and many public safety agencies, farmers, small businesses, and hobbyists in the US continue to rely heavily on the company’s products because of their affordability and technological lead.
More: Drone ban is one thing, why can’t America get other DJI gadgets?
Still, Trusty framed the issue as both a security concern and an economic competition issue. “At its core,” she said, “this effort is about ensuring that the United States’ drone market is secure, trusted, and that principles of market fairness will determine who designs, builds, and deploys the intelligent systems that will define the future of our economic and national security.”
Much of Trusty’s speech focused on the massive potential she sees in AI-powered drones. She opened with a vivid hypothetical example involving a drone delivering emergency blood supplies to a rural North Carolina hospital in just 11 minutes — far faster and cheaper than a helicopter response.
“That scenario is hypothetical,” she noted. “But the technology that makes it possible is not.”
From agriculture and infrastructure inspections to disaster response and military operations, Trusty argued drones are becoming “a new and intelligent layer of our digital economy.” She repeatedly emphasized that artificial intelligence is what transforms drones from remote-controlled aircraft into autonomous systems capable of real-time decision-making.
“AI empowers drones to support comprehensive data collection activities and analyze that data on the fly, literally,” she said.
Trusty also painted a future where AI-enabled drones can identify survivors in disaster zones, detect structural risks before rescue crews enter buildings, and coordinate complex operations faster than humans can manage alone.
But alongside the optimism was a heavy focus on security risks. Trusty warned that unauthorized drones could threaten “power grids, water systems, and transportation networks,” while hostile nations could exploit drone technology in military conflicts or surveillance operations.
That concern is shaping broader FCC policy beyond just drone bans. The commissioner stressed that reliable wireless spectrum will be critical as drones become increasingly autonomous and data-heavy. “If spectrum is the oxygen of wireless innovation,” she said, “then AI-enabled drones will depend on it at an unprecedented scale.”
She also connected America’s drone ambitions directly to AI infrastructure, broadband expansion, fiber deployment, and even future 6G networks. “Strong networks and the strengths of systems that move data — spectrum, infrastructure, and connectivity — place communications policy squarely at the center of AI,” Trusty said.
Another major theme was speed, or what some in the industry might call regulatory urgency. Trusty praised President Donald Trump for executive actions aimed at accelerating drone testing and deployment, while calling for faster commercialization of American drone technology and reduced dependence on “foreign adversary supply chains.”
She also pushed for more drone testing environments, streamlined certification processes, expanded innovation zones, and better interagency coordination.
Toward the end of her remarks, Trusty issued a direct call to action for US policymakers and industry leaders. “Build American, test faster, share data across agency lines, and treat the connected and intelligent airspace as the strategic domain it has already become,” she said.
The bigger question, however, is whether the US drone industry can realistically scale fast enough without Chinese hardware dominating much of the global supply chain. American drone makers continue to grow, especially in defense and enterprise markets, but many still struggle to match DJI’s pricing, manufacturing scale, and mature ecosystem.
For now, though, the FCC appears firmly committed to its current course: prioritizing “trusted” drone ecosystems, tighter security oversight, and American-led AI drone infrastructure, even if it means fewer foreign-made drone options for US buyers in the short term.
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