--- title: The U.S. is building barriers around drones and robots,... description: Washington has tightened restrictions on foreign-made drones and advanced robotic systems, adding new tariffs and expanding the FCC's Covered List, citing... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/the-u-s-is-building-barriers-around-drones-and-robots-but-china-has-scale-to-get-around-them-hoguujdew twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: The U.S. is building barriers around drones and robots, but China has scale to get around them | daily.dev og:description: Washington has tightened restrictions on foreign-made drones and advanced robotic systems, adding new tariffs and expanding the FCC's Covered List, citing... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-u-s-is-building-barriers-around-drones-and-robots-but-china-has-scale-to-get-around-them-hoguujdew og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/hoguUjDEw.png og:image:alt: The U.S. is building barriers around drones and robots, but China has scale to get around them og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The U.S. is building barriers around drones and robots, but China has scale to get around them **[TechCrunch](https://daily.dev/sources/tc)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Washington has tightened restrictions on foreign-made drones and advanced robotic systems, adding new tariffs and expanding the FCC's Covered List, citing national security. Chinese manufacturers dominate global humanoid robot shipments (86% of the market in H1 2026 via AgiBot, Unitree, Galbot, UBTECH and Leju Robotics) and lead in drones, with cost and manufacturing scale that U.S. tariffs and bans don't directly address. Analysts expect a more fragmented, regional robotics market: China competing on cost across much of the world, U.S. and allied firms focusing on security-sensitive markets like defense, and Japan, South Korea and Taiwan carving out a middle position. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why did the US impose tariffs on drones and expand restrictions on foreign-made robots in 2026? The US cited national-security concerns, tightening restrictions on foreign-made advanced robotic systems in July and August and imposing steep tariffs on imported drones and their components. The tariffs take effect in September, with additional component tariffs following in 2027. The FCC's Covered List, originally targeting telecom and surveillance equipment from Huawei, ZTE and Hikvision, expanded to cover foreign drones and advanced robotic devices. _Track how supply-chain policy shifts like these reshape hardware sourcing decisions, curated on daily.dev._ ### Which companies lead global humanoid robot shipments and how much of the market do they control? AgiBot, Unitree, Galbot, UBTECH and Leju Robotics are the world's five largest humanoid robot makers by shipments, and all five are Chinese companies. Together they accounted for 86% of global humanoid robot shipments in the first half of 2026, out of roughly 22,000 units shipped worldwide, according to Counterpoint Research. _Engineers evaluating robotics platforms can follow shifting vendor market share via daily.dev._ ### Can US tariffs and bans actually offset China's cost advantage in robotics manufacturing? Not directly, according to industry analysts. China's manufacturing scale, supply-chain depth, and lower costs let it flood the market with cheaper robots, generating real-world usage data that further improves the technology and drives costs down further. As one investment director put it, you cannot sanction your way around a cost curve, you can only out-build it through decade-long investment. _Anyone weighing hardware vendor risk against cost can follow this scale-versus-restrictions debate on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [US Ban on Chinese Robots Could Reshape Supply Chains](https://daily.dev/posts/us-ban-on-chinese-robots-could-reshape-supply-chains-iem5baipt) · IEEE Spectrum · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [China threatens retaliation over the US robot ban](https://daily.dev/posts/china-threatens-retaliation-over-the-us-robot-ban-q82yfwlrb) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#robotics](https://daily.dev/tags/robotics), [#supply-chain](https://daily.dev/tags/supply-chain) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-u-s-is-building-barriers-around-drones-and-robots-but-china-has-scale-to-get-around-them-hoguujdew) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"The U.S. is building barriers around drones and robots, but China has scale to get around them","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-u-s-is-building-barriers-around-drones-and-robots-but-china-has-scale-to-get-around-them-hoguujdew","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-u-s-is-building-barriers-around-drones-and-robots-but-china-has-scale-to-get-around-them-hoguujdew"},"datePublished":"2026-08-31T02:38:05.856Z","dateModified":"2026-08-31T02:38:37.322Z","description":"Washington has tightened restrictions on foreign-made drones and advanced robotic systems, adding new tariffs and expanding the FCC's Covered List, citing...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/d3c72d70daaab48290e9b6861e75c12a?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/d3c72d70daaab48290e9b6861e75c12a?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"TechCrunch","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TechCrunch","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tc","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-u-s-is-building-barriers-around-drones-and-robots-but-china-has-scale-to-get-around-them-hoguujdew","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"robotics,supply-chain","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"TechCrunch","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tc"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The U.S. is building barriers around drones and robots, but China has scale to get around them"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/the-u-s-is-building-barriers-around-drones-and-robots-but-china-has-scale-to-get-around-them-hoguujdew#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why did the US impose tariffs on drones and expand restrictions on foreign-made robots in 2026?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"The US cited national-security concerns, tightening restrictions on foreign-made advanced robotic systems in July and August and imposing steep tariffs on imported drones and their components. 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