President Donald Trump signed executive orders on Friday that officials said would reshape the global drone industry and American airspace operations — and perhaps even lead to flying cars.
“Flying cars are not just for the Jetsons, they’re also for the American people,” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, said on a call with reporters previewing the policy changes, which include removing regulations and promoting the development of these vehicles.
The orders are meant in part to boost U.S. manufacturing of drones, which has lagged behind cheaper and more advanced imports from China, alarming China hawks. Officials said the orders would remove regulations that make it more expensive to manufacture drones domestically, instruct federal agencies to prioritize the procurement of U.S.-made drones, and direct the creation of a grant program for local authorities to buy them.
The set of orders will also allow companies like Amazon to expand drone delivery operations and remove restrictions on supersonic flights over land, banned by the federal government in 1973 due to concerns over noise pollution caused by “sonic booms.”
“Red tape has hindered homegrown drone innovation, restricting commercial drone use and burdening their development,” Kratsios said.
Chinese drone manufacturers like DJI are well-established in the U.S. drone market. The popularity of foreign-made drones is concerning for China hawks in Washington. In recent months, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party has pushed the administration to pursue heightened scrutiny over drones manufactured in China.
The National Defense Authorization Act, passed in late 2024, also directed the U.S. intelligence community to investigate possible national security threats posed by Chinese drone manufacturers. Under the NDAA, companies like DIJ can be barred from selling new products in the U.S.
One of Trump’s executive actions will direct the Department of Commerce to carry out investigations and regulatory reviews into the drone supply chain and foreign drone manufacturers like DJI, a White House official told reporters on the condition of anonymity. This investigation would satisfy NDAA requirements, the official said.
Trump also ordered the creation of a federal task force to crack down on illegal drone use. Illegal drone flights in the U.S. and Ukraine’s recent attack on Russia, which was carried out with small drones, have heightened concerns over the national security threat posed by drones, another White House official said.
“We already know that there’s drones being used down on our borders to fly drugs across the border, to surveil our military and Border Patrol officers down there,” the official said. “There are already eight weaponization cases here in the United States, all at the criminal level. And then there have been multiple very public events over sporting stadiums.”
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Samuel Larreal is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.