"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.