Michael Patrick Perry ran DJI’s North American business from 2014 to 2018, the years the Shenzhen drone maker took over the U.S. market. He now builds American industrial robots as Head of Commercial Strategy at Houston-based Persona AI. In a LinkedIn post this week, he delivered his verdict on the FCC’s crackdown on foreign-made drones: the contest with China is still on, and it will be decided by better products, no matter how much hardware Washington keeps out.

His argument carries weight because almost nobody else in this fight has worked both sides of it. Perry sold Chinese hardware to American buyers while DJI was winning this market, then spent the next eight years on the American robotics bench at Boston Dynamics, Dexterity, and Persona AI. When he writes that the new restrictions hand U.S. manufacturers time and nothing else, he is describing a clock he has watched from both ends.

The post landed a week after the FCC proposal DroneXL broke down on July 22, which would cut off imports and sales of previously authorized foreign drones the agency labels military-grade: thermal imaging drones, LiDAR-equipped drones, docking stations, sprayers, swarming systems, defense-integrated airframes, and anything at or above 25 kilograms (55 pounds).

Perry Sold America On DJI Before Joining The Companies Built To Replace It

Perry served as DJI’s Managing Director for North America from 2014 to August 2018, according to the Seoul Economic Daily, then became Vice President of Business Development at Boston Dynamics, moved to robotics startup Dexterity in 2021, and joined Persona AI in March 2026 as it pushes humanoids into deployment.

Persona AI, led by CEO Nicolaus Radford, is putting humanoid welding robots into shipyards and steel fabrication, with investment and partnership ties that include HD Hyundai and POSCO. Perry’s job is the commercialization problem he first worked on the drone side: turning capable machines into fleets that survive contact with real customer sites.

Brendan Schulman, who led DJI’s policy operation before leaving for Boston Dynamics in September 2021, added a four-word endorsement under the post: “Very thoughtful post, Michael.” Schulman spent this spring making the same crossover argument from the XPONENTIAL stage, telling a Detroit audience that the policy fight around robots in 2026 resembles the drone fight of a decade ago. The executives who once made DJI’s case to American regulators and customers now work in American robotics, and both are telling their new industry that the drone wars were the preview.

The Ban Settles The Security-Versus-Price Fight American Buyers Kept Having

Perry’s first takeaway is that the restrictions end a debate American procurement teams could not settle on their own: whether documented concerns about data collection and remote access paths into Chinese-made hardware outweighed pricing that routinely came in far below the American-made equivalent.

He calls the security concerns real and documented, and the price gap just as real, and says asking buyers to weigh one against the other put them in an unfair position. In his experience, security reviewers and buyers routinely pulled in opposite directions, and the cheaper number usually carried the meeting. The new rules, he argues, remove the price debate from new purchases entirely.

The proposal doing that work is Public Notice DA 26-758, released July 21 in PS Docket No. 26-189. It would prohibit continued importation and marketing of previously authorized foreign drones on the Covered List that fall into the seven military-grade categories, with imports for federal government use and for commercial testing and product development exempt, and a proposed 180-day wind-down after Federal Register publication. Drones already in American hands keep flying. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced the move on LinkedIn as another step toward “strengthening and securing America’s drone supply chain.” Comments are due 30 days after the notice reaches the Federal Register.

Restrictions Turn A Systems Advantage Into Borrowed Time

His second and third points form one warning: American robotics firms built the support systems first and carried the expense in their hardware prices, Chinese rivals scaled cheap production first, and trade restrictions turn that difference into borrowed time that only counts if American companies close the price and quality gap.

In his telling, robotics gets won or lost at the systems level. The machine is what the customer sees; whether the fleet keeps working comes down to the software, safety systems, integration, and support behind it. Many Chinese players, he argues, chased manufacturing scale and rock-bottom unit prices before their machines had a proven job to do. American companies did the opposite, and the new rules give that slower approach time to pay off.

Then the DJI veteran delivers the line his former employer’s history backs up: “Regulation buys room to operate. It does not build a business.” Outside the United States, he notes, buyers still pick the strongest machine they can afford, and Chinese drones remain dominant across most of those markets. He sees the identical pattern developing in electric vehicles. His advice to American robotics is to move before Chinese manufacturers lock up overseas markets or re-enter the U.S. through the security-review door the FCC left open. That door is the Conditional Approval pathway, granted by the Pentagon or DHS, and it no longer carries an expiration date after the FCC’s July 21 action. No Chinese-owned manufacturer has cleared that review yet.

Perry has a commercial stake in this environment, and his post does not hide it. Persona AI sells the American alternative in its category. What separates his take from the standard lobbying script is that he refuses to call the restrictions a victory. DJI is his evidence. The company he helped run took the American market without a protective wall behind it.

DroneXL’s Take

I have tracked the migration of DJI’s American leadership into U.S. robotics since I covered Schulman’s move to Boston Dynamics in 2021, and this is the week that migration started talking back to the policy it left behind. Two executives who watched DJI win the American market from the inside now build and defend American robots. Neither one is telling that industry the wall will save it. That matches the position this publication has held through every round of this fight: fair competition beats protection, whether the thumb on the scale is Beijing’s subsidies or Washington’s import bans.

DJI is the proof. It won here on product and price, and the American operator pocketed the difference. The December 22 Covered List sweep reversed who pays. The time Washington is buying for domestic manufacturers gets billed to the fire department replacing a thermal drone and the farmer shopping for a sprayer.

Perry’s most useful line names what the money cannot buy. The FCC’s own fact sheet celebrates more than $4 billion flowing into U.S. drone production since December. Capital has arrived. Hardware that matches what it replaces, at a price an operator can defend to a city council, has not. That gap is the entire assignment, and no docket closes it.

Two dates will tell us whether the assignment gets done. The first is the PS Docket 26-189 comment deadline, 30 days after Federal Register publication. Operators should put fleet inventories and replacement costs on the record, because this agency demonstrably reads its docket, down to citing DroneXL’s shell-company reporting in its July 17 notice. The second is January 1, 2028, when the extended Blue UAS and Buy America exemptions sunset. If that date arrives and the domestic industry’s answer is another extension request, Perry’s warning will have hardened into a verdict. DJI’s Ninth Circuit challenge could shorten the clock from the other direction at any moment.

Sources: Michael Patrick Perry via LinkedIn; FCC Public Notice DA 26-758, PS Docket No. 26-189; Persona AI; Seoul Economic Daily.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.