Pentagon drone rules allow Chinese battery cells and magnets until August 2027

A small brushless motor from China costs $12 to $25. The nearest thing made in the United States costs $100 to $225. A former senior defense official gave those figures to DefenseScoop in November 2025 and put the gap for a quadcopter at $48 against $400. Multiple sources told the outlet that most aircraft on the Pentagon’s Blue UAS list, its catalog of drones cleared for military purchase, fly on Chinese motors.

Washington spent six years banning Chinese drones while leaving alone the Chinese parts that make a drone fly. The Drone Dominance Program is the first large purchase to write a rule for those parts, and its 2026 rounds show that vendors can meet the rule and also how much Chinese content it still allows. The rule now needs to reach beyond one program, and the orders behind it need to outlast the program’s four phases.

The law covered data and skipped propulsion

Section 848 of the fiscal 2020 defense authorization bars the Defense Department from buying drones and components from covered foreign countries, but as DefenseScoop reported, it has been applied to parts that store and transmit data. Michael Robbins, chief executive of the industry group AUVSI, told the outlet that “motors were not considered one of those critical components,” which left “a very immature drone motor market outside of China.” The American Security Drone Act targets who builds the aircraft, prohibiting delivery and operation of drones made or assembled by listed foreign entities, according to the Drone Dominance supply chain framework, which also states that “no current statute mandates non-Chinese motors” for small drones.

The 2025 overhaul changed who administers these rules more than what they reach. The Defense Innovation Unit handed the Blue list to the Defense Contract Management Agency on December 3, 2025, with 39 systems and 165 components certified. On December 22 the Federal Communications Commission added all foreign-made drones and critical components to its Covered List, blocking new models from equipment authorization. A month later it exempted Blue-listed products and anything meeting the Buy American test of 65 percent domestic component cost, until January 1, 2027. A cost test is a weak filter here, because motors worth $48 barely register in the bill of materials of a drone that sells for thousands of dollars.

Beijing has already used the dependence

China sanctioned Skydio in October 2024 over a sale to Taiwan’s fire agency, and the company rationed customers to one battery per drone, The Drone Girl reported, quoting chief executive Adam Bry’s warning that “the Chinese government will use supply chains as a weapon.” That December, DroneLife reported that Chinese companies had reduced or halted sales of batteries, motors and flight controllers to the United States, Europe and Ukraine. Rare earth export licensing followed in April 2025, with licenses that could take up to two months. On August 5, 2026, China’s commerce ministry issued Announcement No. 34, putting exports of controlled drones and components bound for the United States under “strict case-by-case review”.

The 2026 purchases set the floor at assembly

The first Gauntlet, flown at Fort Benning in February and March 2026, held 25 companies only to the existing statutory baseline, and 11 of them received orders. Program officials had already said that from phase two the department would “preclude buying any systems that utilize motors or battery systems from covered countries,” and warned that the demand “may also put a strain” on suppliers. The strain showed up before the stricter rule did. On August 25, Inside Unmanned Systems counted 13,440 of 22,320 ordered drones delivered more than five months after the competition and blamed shortages of compliant motors, batteries and speed controllers.

The framework, revised on July 23, made the phase two floor explicit and disqualifying: motors and battery packs must be assembled outside covered countries, and batteries cannot come from listed Chinese firms such as CATL. The later columns show the limits of that floor. Battery cells and magnet production from non-covered countries are only scored preferences in February 2027 and do not become minimums until August 2027. A drone that qualified this summer could therefore carry cells from an unlisted Chinese maker in a pack assembled elsewhere.

Vendors cleared that bar. At Fort Carson in August, 19 companies flew 23 platforms, and the Defense Innovation Unit described the field as “cheaper, more capable, and sourced from a supply chain more closely tied to the American industrial base.” The department plans to buy about 60,000 drones, at fixed prices of $4,500 and $3,500 per airframe against $5,000 in the first round, though GovConIC found the orders unsigned as of September 23. The framework concedes that non-covered components “will be more expensive, at least initially” and argues that only committed volume will bring them down. Capacity is being financed on that bet, including an $820 million conditional federal loan to Performance Drone Works and an Army selection of Vulcan Elements for motor magnets.

The framework admits it “does not apply to all sUAS purchases” in the department. Congress should put the phase two floor on motors and battery packs into statute for every small-drone buy, with the cell and magnet dates attached so that a supplier’s market is larger than one $1.1 billion program. The contract management agency should publish the list of noncompliant covered-country components the framework promises. The FCC should decide well before January 1 whether its exemption continues, and should judge drones by where their motors and cells come from, since a 65 percent cost share says little about either. Motor and cell plants take years to pay back, and the program they are being built for has so far planned its last orders for the phase that ends in early 2028.