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US will unleash 'drone dominance' by fast-tracking production

That reference cites all the pie-in-the-sky effects that tariffs MIGHT have, but offers no evidence that the erratic tariff policies we're seeing now will, or even can, have those desired effects.
It does...but it takes TIME for the effects to be felt to see what actually happens. Unlike the speed of 24 hour news media and attack politics, things in the real world don't change overnight. The current admin has been in place barely 6 months, and the tariffs less than that. Time will tell...
 
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I said it "sounds like" - I didn't say "you said". Great, if you want to invest in American manufacturing we are on the same page.
We're only on the same page if you think banning DJI and Autel is a horrible idea as well. It won't do anything to boost U.S. production for the consumer and prosumer lines. At least not in time to save the industry.
 
It does...but it takes TIME for the effects to be felt to see what actually happens. Unlike the speed of 24 hour news media and attack politics, things in the real world don't change overnight. The current admin has been in place barely 6 months, and the tariffs less than that. Time will tell...
Don't you think it odd that the only economists who think the proposed tariff implementation is a good idea, are working in/for the white house?
All others have explained what time will tell and it's not good.
 
It does...but it takes TIME for the effects to be felt to see what actually happens. Unlike the speed of 24 hour news media and attack politics, things in the real world don't change overnight. The current admin has been in place barely 6 months, and the tariffs less than that. Time will tell...
I just ran across this today - has a nice roundup of the current effects of tariffs (scroll down to the picture of Trump to read it): ☕️ SKY SIGNS ☙ Saturday, July 12, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠
 
It does...but it takes TIME for the effects to be felt to see what actually happens. Unlike the speed of 24 hour news media and attack politics, things in the real world don't change overnight. The current admin has been in place barely 6 months, and the tariffs less than that. Time will tell...
"24 hour news media and attack politics" have nothing to do with the topic.

The problem is that product development/design and manufacturing investment have very long time constants. It takes years to go from a state of "no one even has a design" to "products on the store shelf." (And that happens only when the economic situation is favorable, which it is not in the US for drones, consumer electronics, cameras, major appliances, and many other consumer goods.) Long-term investment and manufacturing require a reasonably stable marketplace. No one is going to invest tens of millions of dollars or more based on tariffs that may change, double, or disappear tomorrow.

Time will indeed tell. But , what's the absolute best scenario for American civilian drone buyers created by the Trump tariff strategy.
  • Trump imposes tariffs of X% where X is the rate that perfectly "evens the playing field" so that an American made drone that's more expensive would be head-to-head competitive with a DJI drone in the US market with US buyers paying the X% tariff.
  • No American firm currently offers products that are competitive in function or price, even with the tariff placed on American buyers of imports. So, it all must begin from essentially the beginning.
  • But, an American firm raises the required funds and decides to enter the market. Maybe they get a huge federal grant (financed by American taxpayers) and begins development of several drone models.
  • During the two to three year process required to put product on the store shelves, American consumers are either buying DJI drones at prices X% greater than the rest of the world or they're simply doing without.
  • After a couple or three years, the domestic drone models become available and they're somehow immediately as good as the models from a company that's been refining their product over more than a decade and have improved their offerings substantially during the time since the domestic manufacturer started from scratch. (This is a very tough assumption to swallow.)
  • Future American buyers have domestically produced drones comparable to what DJI is selling and the prices, considering tariffs on imports, are comparable. Great! Buy American.
The best scenario is very highly unlikely to develop. And even if it does, the US drones are price competitive only in the US and only with tariffs. They're X% overpriced in the world market.

What happens next? If the world believes the tariffs will be permanent, there will likely be competition from businesses in countries other than China where the economics are more favorable for manufacturing drones. Economies of scale in American manufacturing and mom and apple pie sound bites from Pete aren't going to change the economic forces that make manufacturing such products unattractive in the US. The world has changed.
 
Without giving anything away (don't read anything into it), some of the finest mobile phones in the world at the time (early 2000s) were made right here; that's a fact because I've been there and saw it with my own eyes:

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Yeah, I remember those, had one myself, they were flogged here in South Africa too, was about the time I stopped buying Levi jeans and Caterpillar boots because they came loose at the seams and sported 'Made in China under licence' labels. 'Merica was too busy sponsoring and fighting wars (and making movies about it) abroad to bother about manufacturing their own jeans, war was more profitable.
But you have my sympathy, when politicians are entrusted with workmanship pride and ethics it goes down the drain.
In South Africa the standing joke is; 'What did we use to provide illumination at night before candles?' The answer is 'electricity'.
What did the 'Mericans use to fly before paper kites? DJI drones.
Without giving anything away (don't read anything into it), some of the finest mobile phones in the world at the time (early 2000s) were made right here; that's a fact because I've been there and saw it with my own eyes:

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Yeah
 
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Gosh this is super embarrassing, slightly unprofessional, and it feels 3rd world-ish to me.
This dude is even an insult to a 3rd world-ish country like the one I live in, I would simply call it 'over acting' , watch his 'if looks could kill' facial expressions when standing behind 'the chosen one' at press conferences 🤪
But give him that, he chose the perfect hair dresser.
 
Several people have pointed out that even if the US were to make every effort to catch up with China, it would take years, probably a decade or more. This is a 7 year old interview of Tim Cook by Fortune Magazine where they discuss Apple's relationship with China. The entire video is worth watching, but this link will take you to a point where Tim explains why Apple use China. It's not cost, it's technical expertise. The kind of expertise that takes decades to master and that the US no longer has. The harshest point comes about 50 seconds in where Tim talks about tooling engineers and how you'd have trouble filling a room with them in America, whereas in China you could fill multiple football fields. This isn't something we can correct overnight.
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"24 hour news media and attack politics" have nothing to do with the topic.

The problem is that product development/design and manufacturing investment have very long time constants. It takes years to go from a state of "no one even has a design" to "products on the store shelf." (And that happens only when the economic situation is favorable, which it is not in the US for drones, consumer electronics, cameras, major appliances, and many other consumer goods.) Long-term investment and manufacturing require a reasonably stable marketplace. No one is going to invest tens of millions of dollars or more based on tariffs that may change, double, or disappear tomorrow.

Time will indeed tell. But , what's the absolute best scenario for American civilian drone buyers created by the Trump tariff strategy.
  • Trump imposes tariffs of X% where X is the rate that perfectly "evens the playing field" so that an American made drone that's more expensive would be head-to-head competitive with a DJI drone in the US market with US buyers paying the X% tariff.
  • No American firm currently offers products that are competitive in function or price, even with the tariff placed on American buyers of imports. So, it all must begin from essentially the beginning.
  • But, an American firm raises the required funds and decides to enter the market. Maybe they get a huge federal grant (financed by American taxpayers) and begins development of several drone models.
  • During the two to three year process required to put product on the store shelves, American consumers are either buying DJI drones at prices X% greater than the rest of the world or they're simply doing without.
  • After a couple or three years, the domestic drone models become available and they're somehow immediately as good as the models from a company that's been refining their product over more than a decade and have improved their offerings substantially during the time since the domestic manufacturer started from scratch. (This is a very tough assumption to swallow.)
  • Future American buyers have domestically produced drones comparable to what DJI is selling and the prices, considering tariffs on imports, are comparable. Great! Buy American.
The best scenario is very highly unlikely to develop. And even if it does, the US drones are price competitive only in the US and only with tariffs. They're X% overpriced in the world market.

What happens next? If the world believes the tariffs will be permanent, there will likely be competition from businesses in countries other than China where the economics are more favorable for manufacturing drones. Economies of scale in American manufacturing and mom and apple pie sound bites from Pete aren't going to change the economic forces that make manufacturing such products unattractive in the US. The world has changed.
The 24 hour new commentary was relevant to my point - which was about time and tariffs. But it wasn't specifically related to drones, but across the board. Sorry if you took it to be limited to that one area. Your points on manufacturing are valid and I don't disagree.

It does seem funny though that people attack the tariffs for the reasons you state, but our country has been doing the very same thing in-country for years with green energy (EVs, windmills, solar panels, etc) - subsidizing them (basically a reverse tariff on their competition) to push them into the market...when every economic indicator shows they won't make it on their own merits.
 
Several people have pointed out that even if the US were to make every effort to catch up with China, it would take years, probably a decade or more. This is a 7 year old interview of Tim Cook by Fortune Magazine where they discuss Apple's relationship with China. The entire video is worth watching, but this link will take you to a point where Tim explains why Apple use China. It's not cost, it's technical expertise. The kind of expertise that takes decades to master and that the US no longer has. The harshest point comes about 50 seconds in where Tim talks about tooling engineers and how you'd have trouble filling a room with them in America, whereas in China you could fill multiple football fields. This isn't something we can correct overnight.
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this is a very good video - have watched in the past. He knows this stuff because this is what he was brought to Apple to be in charge of. BUUUUUT...it's not that we can't do that in this country, it's that we ceded a lot of manufacturing to the Asian countries long ago because companies started farming out to find cheap labor (you can thank American unions for a lot of that). So over time, they grew manufacturing capabilities that never really had a chance to grow here. As they did that, entire new markets developed (like drones), and here we are...

That doesn't change the reality that it is to our detriment to be reliant on China (or other countries) to produce electronics that are vital to our current way of life.
 
This dude is even an insult to a 3rd world-ish country like the one I live in, I would simply call it 'over acting' , watch his 'if looks could kill' facial expressions when standing behind 'the chosen one' at press conferences 🤪
But give him that, he chose the perfect hair dresser.
All I will say is, as a person who worked under the previous SECDEF (!!!!), Hegseth is a breath of fresh air for the DoD - civilians and military.
 
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It does seem funny though that people attack the tariffs for the reasons you state, but our country has been doing the very same thing in-country for years with green energy (EVs, windmills, solar panels, etc) - subsidizing them (basically a reverse tariff on their competition) to push them into the market...when every economic indicator shows they won't make it on their own merits.
Solyndra was a manufacturer of cylindrical panels of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin film solar cells. It was based in Fremont, California. In 2009, Solyndra received a $535 million U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee, the first recipient of a loan guarantee under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Heavily promoted as a leader in the sustainable energy sector for its unusual technology, Solyndra was not able to compete with conventional solar panel manufacturers of crystalline silicon. The company filed for bankruptcy on September 1, 2011.
 
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but our country has been doing the very same thing in-country for years with green energy (EVs, windmills, solar panels, etc) - subsidizing them (basically a reverse tariff on their competition) to push them into the market...when every economic indicator shows they won't make it on their own merits.
But there has been improvement in bringing manufacturing of those sectors to the US. Isn't that the strategy?

Unlike the fossil fuel industry that needs no subsidy, yet has been raking it in for decades.

AI Overview



The amount the United States subsidizes the fossil fuel industry varies depending on how subsidies are defined (direct vs. indirect) and the year in question
.

Amount of subsidies
  • Estimates for direct government subsidies to the fossil fuel industry range from $10 billion to $52 billion per year.
  • However, when considering indirect subsidies, such as the costs of climate change, air pollution, and infrastructure damage not factored into energy prices, the figure rises significantly.
  • The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that in 2022, U.S. fossil fuel subsidies, including both direct and indirect, amounted to $760 billion annually,. This represents a nearly 35% share of the global total, which reached a staggering $7 trillion that year.
Duration of subsidies
  • Government support for the fossil fuel industry in the United States dates back as far as the 1780s, initially through measures like protective tariffs and land grants.
 
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    • George Kaiser Family Foundation:
      The George Kaiser Family Foundation, backed by Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, was a major investor in Solyndra. Kaiser, who had close ties to the Obama administration, had met with White House officials, including Valerie Jarrett, prior to the loan guarantee.

      Lobbyists:
      Solyndra spent heavily on lobbying, including firms with ties to members of Congress and Obama administration officials. This lobbying effort was aimed at securing government assistance, including the loan guarantee.






 
The 24 hour new commentary was relevant to my point - which was about time and tariffs. But it wasn't specifically related to drones, but across the board. Sorry if you took it to be limited to that one area. Your points on manufacturing are valid and I don't disagree.

It does seem funny though that people attack the tariffs for the reasons you state, but our country has been doing the very same thing in-country for years with green energy (EVs, windmills, solar panels, etc) - subsidizing them (basically a reverse tariff on their competition) to push them into the market...when every economic indicator shows they won't make it on their own merits.
It would be interesting to compare the subsidies aimed at the green energy industry with the subsidies enjoyed by the oil and gas industries since...forever.
 
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The 24 hour new commentary was relevant to my point - which was about time and tariffs. But it wasn't specifically related to drones, but across the board. Sorry if you took it to be limited to that one area. Your points on manufacturing are valid and I don't disagree.
I really don't see how "24 hour news media and attack politics" have anything to do with a rational discussion of tariffs or economics across the board.
It does seem funny though that people attack the tariffs for the reasons you state, but our country has been doing the very same thing in-country for years with green energy (EVs, windmills, solar panels, etc) - subsidizing them (basically a reverse tariff on their competition) to push them into the market...when every economic indicator shows they won't make it on their own merits.
Actual real-world markets, not just indicators, exhibit an enormous success with wind-generated and solar PV power all around the world and in places like Kansas, Texas, and Vermont. Those technologies are definitely making it on their own merits in other countries around the world. The US and China are the only nations attempting to cling to coal and other fossil fuels, and China is hedging it's bets with solar and wind.

A subsidy to encourage development of a new technology is quite different from a tariff to artificially hinder a product or supplier in order to favor another. One if productive, the other is restrictive and punitive.

Instead of looking backward and arguing that tariffs are just as bad as other things that were done, why not look ahead and consider how our actions today might improve things tomorrow?
 
The 24 hour new commentary was relevant to my point - which was about time and tariffs. But it wasn't specifically related to drones, but across the board. Sorry if you took it to be limited to that one area. Your points on manufacturing are valid and I don't disagree.

It does seem funny though that people attack the tariffs for the reasons you state, but our country has been doing the very same thing in-country for years with green energy (EVs, windmills, solar panels, etc) - subsidizing them (basically a reverse tariff on their competition) to push them into the market...when every economic indicator shows they won't make it on their own merits.
The tariff is a tax where the money goes to the government, not the consumer. The renewable energy incentives go to the consumer or the business.

I installed solar panels on my home 2 years ago. I received a tax credit to offset the cost, but I would have done it anyway. My break even point is somewhere between 6 and 8 years, depending on the cost of electricity. Without the federal tax credit, it probably would have taken 12 years to break even.

The energy that my house generates during the day goes straight into the grid. That helps our aging energy infrastructure deal with the increasing demand on the grid. For my investment, I get a cheaper utility bill, and I'm helping other customers by putting electricity into the grid instead of taking it out.

On the other hand, we have tariffs being applied all over the place and as punitive measures. The current administration is threatening a 50% tariff on Brazil. Not over any trade inequalities, but because Trump is mad that the Brazilian government is investigating the former president for attempting to mount an illegal coup.

Tariffs are not the same thing as a tax credit incentive.
 
But there has been improvement in bringing manufacturing of those sectors to the US. Isn't that the strategy?

Unlike the fossil fuel industry that needs no subsidy, yet has been raking it in for decades.
I'm not sure that there has been an improvement. It's not really a manufacturing problem, it's a technology problem and the storage capacity of batteries, the energy efficiency of solar-to-power conversion of solar panels, etc. another example: 11 years after a celebrated opening, massive solar plant faces a bleak future in the Mojave Desert
 
I really don't see how "24 hour news media and attack politics" have anything to do with a rational discussion of tariffs or economics across the board.

Actual real-world markets, not just indicators, exhibit an enormous success with wind-generated and solar PV power all around the world and in places like Kansas, Texas, and Vermont. Those technologies are definitely making it on their own merits in other countries around the world. The US and China are the only nations attempting to cling to coal and other fossil fuels, and China is hedging it's bets with solar and wind.

A subsidy to encourage development of a new technology is quite different from a tariff to artificially hinder a product or supplier in order to favor another. One if productive, the other is restrictive and punitive.

Instead of looking backward and arguing that tariffs are just as bad as other things that were done, why not look ahead and consider how our actions today might improve things tomorrow?
Wind-generated power is not as great as it's made out to be:
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& this is "balanced" but the comments are telling:
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