On Friday, September 6, several members of the U.S. Congress jointly sent a letter to Tom Vilsack, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and Jen Easterly, the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), urging action to mitigate the national security risks posed by the proliferation of agricultural drones manufactured in China across the United States.
The letter was jointly signed by Elise Stefanik and Ashley Hinson, members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ China Task Force, along with Chairman John Moolenaar. They called on the U.S. Department of Agriculture and CISA to provide detailed information on the measures taken to address the national security risks posed by Chinese-manufactured agricultural drones.
Over the years, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been actively working to undermine the United States’ agricultural dominance, utilizing its monopoly in the drone manufacturing sector to further this goal. This situation has led to unacceptable national security risks and jeopardizes the security of the U.S. food supply.
Currently, the U.S. Department of Commerce categorizes agricultural aerosol spraying drones as weapon delivery platforms, imposing strict export restrictions on drones manufactured in the U.S. However, among the nearly ten thousand drones registered in the U.S., many are produced by the Chinese military enterprise DJI.
Furthermore, drones produced by DJI feature advanced sensing technology tailored for monitoring the health of crops and guiding drones to spray in specific areas. This implies that Chinese-manufactured drones are actively collecting detailed information on American agriculture, which could potentially be exploited by the CCP to threaten U.S. food security.
The bipartisan legislation proposed by Representative Stefanik, the Countering CCP Drones Act, has been included in the U.S. House-passed National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, aiming to prohibit the operation of DJI’s new drones in the United States.
In their letter, the members of Congress emphasized, “Food security is national security, and the CCP is actively seeking to undermine America’s global agricultural leadership. China is aggressively acquiring U.S. farmland, and CCP spies have directly stolen genetically modified seeds developed in Iowa fields. The supply of agricultural drones dominated by China is another strategic threat to America’s food supply.”
The representatives continued, stating, “The industry cybersecurity guidance recently released by CISA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) clearly outlines the risk of DJI transmitting data to the CCP.”
According to the guidance, the use of drones manufactured in China “could potentially expose sensitive information to CCP authorities, endangering U.S. national security, economic security, and public health and safety.”
Moreover, China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law stipulates that “all” Chinese organizations and citizens are obliged to assist in the state’s intelligence activities. “This implies that DJI must support China’s intelligence agencies and military by providing data collected in China and abroad.”
The members of Congress have requested the Biden administration to report on the actions taken to address the national security risks posed by Chinese-made drones by September 30.