Three Weeks to Takeoff: DJI’s Last-Minute Plea as the U.S. Threatens to Ground Its Drones

DJI is making a dramatic, slightly desperate airport-run for Washington’s attention — and the company’s final boarding call arrives with less than three weeks to spare... 

In a string of letters to top national-security officials, DJI’s Head of Global Policy Adam Welsh warned that unless a Congressionally mandated security audit kicks off immediately, the company’s drones could be automatically added to the Federal Communications Commission’s “Covered List” on December 23, 2025 — a move that would effectively bar new DJI models from the U.S. market.

“With less than one month left before the December 23, 2025 deadline, we urge you to take up this audit immediately to avoid any negative consequences to American drone users, including our public safety and law enforcement officers, and to provide them with answers about the security of DJI products,” Welsh wrote — language that reads like a cross between a bedtime warning and a corporate version of “don’t make us pull the emergency brake!”

DJI insists it’s eager to cooperate. 

“Our position on this audit has never wavered,” Welsh told the officials, adding that DJI stands ready to be “open and transparent, and provide you with the necessary information to complete a thorough review.” 

But Welsh also made the existential case for hundreds of thousands of U.S. users: more than 80% of state and local law enforcement and emergency services reportedly use DJI gear, meaning a default addition to the Covered List would be less of a company setback and more of an operational headache for first responders.

Congress wrote the audit into law under Section 1709 of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, but the statute didn’t include a helpful clause titled “who actually does the auditing.” 

That gap has produced the uncomfortable state of affairs: the clock is ticking, no agency has publicly confirmed the review has begun, and retailers and fleets already find some DJI models harder to buy. 

The law’s deadline is blunt: if an “appropriate national-security agency” hasn’t completed the assessment within a year, the FCC must add the manufacturer to its Covered List.

DJI pointed out that it has already faced prior reviews — from U.S. agencies including the Department of the Interior and independent labs — and argues those audits show its products can pass scrutiny. 

The company’s letters to officials, including a separate note to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, say earlier offers to collaborate have gone unanswered and that failing to act will “deprive American drone users of due process — and of answers about the safety and security of the DJI products they use every day.”

National-security hawks counter that the risks of foreign-made hardware and opaque supply chains justify a thorough review — and potentially stringent restrictions. 

The FCC’s recent empowerment to retroactively block devices has only sharpened the stakes. 

If DJI winds up on the Covered List, the immediate effect would be to prevent new DJI models from receiving FCC authorizations; over time, degraded software support, restricted connectivity, and supply-chain headaches could make existing DJI models less useful to American operators. 

That would be a technical sunset rather than an immediate confiscation — but a painful one nonetheless for public-safety agencies and small businesses that rely on the brand.

So what might “an eleventh-hour audit” look like? 

In theory, an agency would schedule an inspection, subpoena the right technical documentation, test radio security and data flows, and issue a pass/fail decision — or some variant thereof.

 

In practice, scheduling labs, coordinating interagency roles, and assuring procedural fairness before December 23 is a heavy lift. 

DJI’s plea is partly legalism — “follow the statute” — and partly a community-service argument: don’t strand city fire departments and volunteer search-and-rescue teams because politics ran out of calendar pages.

If the audit starts now, DJI could be cleared and the deadline become a footnote. 

If it doesn’t, December 23 may be remembered as the day dozens of public programs and civilian users woke up to a very different drone ecosystem. 

Either way, the countdown is no longer hypothetical — it’s a three-week ultimatum, and the company’s last-ditch letters are now the most public ping of a clock that’s been quietly ticking for months.

Grounded: DJI’s Drone Drama — The FCC’s New Retroactive Ban Power and Your Quadcopter

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Sources summary (brief): Reuters reporting on DJI’s appeal and the looming Dec. 23, 2025 statutory deadline; DJI’s December 2025 letters to U.S. officials (available in full PDF form) urging agencies to begin the Section 1709 audit; industry coverage and explainers summarizing the NDAA requirement and the FCC’s authority to add manufacturers to the Covered List; reporting on prior U.S. agency and lab reviews of DJI technology and on the potential operational impact for state and local public-safety users. (Reuters)