China sanctions US drone maker Skydio in ongoing trade war

China has sanctioned Skydio, America’s largest drone maker, for providing unmanned aerial vehicles to Taiwan’s national fire service. Skydio CEO Adam Bry publicly acknowledged the sanctions on Wednesday. “A few weeks ago, China announced sanctions on Skydio for selling drones to Taiwan, where our only customer today is the National Fire Agency,” Bry wrote in a blog post.

As first reported by the Financial Times, the ban has sent Skydio racing to find alternative battery suppliers. Although the company manufactures its drones in the US and sources many of the components that go inside of them from outside of China, Skydio had been wholly dependent on a single Chinese provider for batteries before October 11, when the country’s government imposed the embargo.

According to Bry, the company has a “substantial stock” of power cells on hand, but those supplies won’t be enough to prevent near-term rationing, and the alternate suppliers Skydio is working to engage won’t “come online until the spring of next year.” Subsequently, future shipments of the company’s flagship X10 drone (pictured above) will only come with one battery for the time being.

Among the customers Skydio has been contracted to provide X10 drones to was Ukraine’s military, which planned to use the UAV for reconnaissance missions. Before the sanctions, Ukraine had requested thousands of X10 units, according to the Financial Times.

Skydio’s relationship with Taiwan may have only been a pretext for the sanctions. “We suspect Skydio was targeted by Beijing because it is likely seen as a competitor to DJI,” a US official told the Financial Times. “If there is a silver lining, we can use this episode to accelerate our work to diversify drone supply chains away from … China.”

DJI, it should be mentioned, has long been in the crosshairs of the US government. In mid-October, the Chinese drone maker filed a lawsuit against the Department of Defense over a decision the Pentagon made to designate it as a “Chinese military company.” Earlier in the year, DJI narrowly avoided a national ban when the US Senate released its version of the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act.