Democrats won the House and the Senate on November 3, and the first question in my inbox the next morning was whether that brings DJI back to the United States. It does not, and the reason is not a shortage of votes. DJI sits on the FCC’s Covered List under a law that President Biden signed, enforced by an FCC chairman Biden renominated, with a Republican president holding the veto pen until January 20, 2029.

NBC News projects Democrats will hold at least 258 House seats, and CBS News puts them at 54 Senate seats or more. The new Congress is seated on January 3, 2027. Until then, the Republican majorities finish this year’s defense bill in a lame-duck session. The law that put DJI on the list also wrote its own exit, and that exit runs through the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security, not through Congress.

Biden Signed the Law Behind the Ban, and Senate Democrats Co-Wrote Its Predecessor

Section 1709 of the FY2025 defense bill set the December 23, 2025 deadline that put DJI on the Covered List. President Biden signed it on December 23, 2024. A year earlier he signed the FY2024 bill carrying the American Security Drone Act, written by Senators Rick Scott and Mark Warner.

Warner is a Democrat from Virginia, and the House version DroneXL covered in November 2023 listed Democrats Joe Courtney and Raja Krishnamoorthi among its sponsors. The act bars federal agencies from buying or flying Chinese-made drones. Montana Democrat Jon Tester then co-introduced the Senate version of the Countering CCP Drones Act with Scott in June 2024, and Elise Stefanik’s House version passed on September 9, 2024 with what her office called unanimous bipartisan support.

The final FY2025 bill dropped Stefanik’s text and put Section 1709 in its place: a one-year security audit of DJI and Autel, with the Covered List as the default if no agency did the work. No agency did the work. The FCC listed DJI on December 22, 2025 on a White House interagency determination it had received the day before, per the agency’s own public notice.

The chairman who signed that notice got his current term from a Democratic president. Biden renominated Brendan Carr in 2023, the Senate confirmed him unanimously, and the term runs to June 2028. Trump made him chairman in January 2025, which took no new confirmation.

Repeal Needs Trump’s Signature, and Democrats Are 13 Senators Short of an Override

Removing DJI from the Covered List by statute takes a bill through both chambers and the president’s signature, or two-thirds of each chamber to override his veto. That is 67 senators and 290 representatives. Democrats are projected at 54 and 258. Trump’s term runs to January 20, 2029.

The next defense bill is already out of their hands. The House passed its FY2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), H.R. 8800, on July 22, 2026 by 216 to 212, and a Senate motion to proceed to the companion bill, S. 4784, failed 50 to 46 on July 14. Reed Smith’s trade group expects the Armed Services leaders to negotiate a compromise in the lame-duck session, competing for floor time with government funding that expires December 11. The Republican Congress writes that compromise, and Reed Smith’s rundown of the two bills’ China provisions names no change to Section 1709.

The first defense bill a Democratic Congress writes is the FY2028 NDAA. The last two were signed on December 23, 2024 and in December 2023, so by that calendar the earliest a Democratic drone provision reaches a president’s desk is December 2027, and the president at that desk is Trump.

The FCC Keeps Its Republican Majority Through 2028, and the Senate Can Only Block New Seats

The commission has three sitting members. Carr’s term ends in June 2028. Olivia Trusty was confirmed 53 to 45 in June 2025 to a term ending in June 2030. Anna Gomez is the lone Democrat. A Democratic Senate can refuse to seat new commissioners. It cannot remove the two Republicans.

Trump nominated Danielle Thumann Severs, Carr’s senior counsel, for one of the two vacant seats in August 2026. The incoming Senate can sit on that nomination, and the result is the same two-to-one commission that listed DJI.

That commission has DJI’s petition for reconsideration in front of it, filed January 21, 2026 in ET Docket 26-22 and still undecided. The Pentagon filed against it by the April 6 deadline with a classified annex, and Senator Scott’s October 14 letter asked Carr to reject it. The public pages of the Pentagon’s Section 1709 letters, which the FCC filed in October, name no specific threat from DJI, and the agency’s own bureau wrote that it did not rely on the Pentagon’s letters when it made the listing.

The same FCC is weighing a second cut. Its July 21 notice in PS Docket 26-189 proposes ending the import and sale of already-approved foreign thermal, LiDAR, spray, swarming and docking drones, and Adam Chan, the agency’s senior national security counsel, said on The Drone Ultimatum podcast on October 30 that the ban is still on the table. Spray drone sales fell 59% in 2025 before that notice existed.

DJI’s Ninth Circuit case, No. 26-1029, survived the government’s first motion to dismiss on May 28, and the court held it until November while the FCC acts on the petition. The government renewed the motion on October 16, and its answering brief is due December 2. In the other DJI case, Judge Paul Friedman rejected most of the Pentagon’s allegations in September 2025 and left DJI on the Chinese Military Company list anyway, on deference to the department.

The Exit the Law Built Runs Through a Pentagon That Already Filed Against DJI

The FCC’s December 22 notice says the Department of War or Homeland Security can determine that a specific drone, a class of drones or a component poses no unacceptable risk, clearing it for authorization. That decision is the executive branch’s. The Pentagon instead opposed DJI’s petition and sealed its reasoning.

DJI told the Ninth Circuit in April that 25 unreleased products sit in limbo and that it expects a $1.56 billion loss for 2026. The Matrice 5T launched on November 5 with a spec sheet that rates its radio for Canada, Europe, China and Japan and not for the FCC. Every DJI drone that reached the US market before December 22, 2025 stays legal to buy and fly, and the FCC extended its firmware waiver for those models to 2029.

DroneXL’s Take

This ban was never a Republican project, and the election changed Congress, not the government that runs the list. A Democratic majority can hold hearings and demand the classified annex behind the Pentagon’s three public paragraphs. Hearings do not issue equipment authorizations. Carr’s commission keeps the list until mid-2028, and the one fast exit runs through a Pentagon that already filed on the other side.

I expect no relief in the short run. The lame-duck Republican Congress writes the FY2027 NDAA in December, and the first defense bill the new majority controls does not reach a president’s desk before late 2027. The FCC’s reconsideration ruling is the one act that could change the picture sooner, and it has been pending for nine months. Watch the December conference text for anything that touches foreign drones, and watch that ruling.

I’d put money on Americans who want a Mavic 4 Pro or a Matrice 5T buying them grey market or not at all through the end of this presidential term. I would rather be wrong. The drones with FCC grants from before December 22, 2025 are still yours to buy and fly, and that is the one thing the election did not touch.

Sources: NBC News, CBS News, FCC Public Notice DA 25-1086, Rep. Elise Stefanik, TV Technology, RCR Wireless, The Desk, Reed Smith Trade Compliance Resource Hub, Drone U.

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