China can ground America’s drone fleet with a single phone call. Washington is letting it happen. | Stars and Stripes
AI Analysis
China is leveraging its dominance in critical supply chains (rare earth minerals, batteries, sensors, motors) to exert pressure on the US defense industrial base, demonstrated by disruptions to US drone manufacturers like Skydio. Beijing is actively tightening export controls and requiring approvals for re-exports, impacting both commercial and military applications. The US is heavily reliant on Chinese components with limited readily available alternatives.
Key Takeaways
- China halted production at Skydio, America’s largest drone manufacturer, via a single phone call to a battery supplier in October 2024.
- A December 2025 analysis revealed Chinese inputs dominate five critical layers of drone production: magnets, batteries, semiconductors, carbon fiber, and infrared sensors.
- Key US weapons systems – F-35, Predator drones, Tomahawk missiles, Virginia-class submarines – rely on Chinese rare earth magnets.
- China imposed export controls on over 20 categories of rare earth equipment in November 2025, requiring government approval for re-exports.
- Infrared sensor shipments to the US dropped 60% and prices surged after China tightened dual-use export controls in June 2025.
Why It Matters
This dependency creates a significant vulnerability for the US military, allowing China to potentially cripple drone fleets and other advanced weapons systems with minimal effort. The situation highlights the critical need for diversifying supply chains and investing in domestic production of key components. Failure to address this issue could severely impact US national security and military readiness.
China can ground America’s drone fleet with a single phone call. Washington is letting it happen. | Stars and Stripes
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Zaikin is the founder and CEO of Key Elements Group, a London-based strategic consultancy specializing in defense and international affairs. He has written on defense procurement and drone warfare for the Jerusalem Post, Forbes and Stars and Stripes. He has also been featured in interviews with the BBC, Sky News and CNBC.
In October 2024, a single phone call from a Chinese government office to a battery supplier in Dongguan severed the power source for Skydio, America’s largest drone manufacturer. The company was grounded overnight. That was one component, one supplier, one phone call. Beijing has since demonstrated it can do the same thing to infrared sensors, rare earth magnets, and motors. It controls the chemistry and metallurgy underneath every military drone the United States fields and most major weapons platforms in the American arsenal.
The question is no longer whether China would pull the plug. It already has. The question is whether Washington will do anything about it before Beijing does it again, across every input category at once.
The scale of the dependency is staggering. A December 2025 analysis confirmed what battlefield commanders already knew: Chinese inputs dominate five critical layers of the drone production stack, from magnets and batteries to semiconductors, carbon fiber and infrared sensors. In each category, non-Chinese alternatives either do not exist at scale or would take years to develop.
A separate CSIS assessment found that the F-35, Predator drones, Tomahawk missiles, and Virginia-class submarine propulsion systems all rely on Chinese rare earth magnets. DJI holds roughly 80% of the American commercial drone market. The majority of platforms on the Pentagon’s own Blue UAS approved list contain Chinese-made motors. A disruption to Chinese rare earth exports would hit every one of these programs simultaneously.
This is not a contingency that might materialize. Beijing has already pulled the trigger, repeatedly and with escalating precision. The Skydio shutdown was only the beginning. The company had to halt production and scramble for alternative suppliers, but batteries were one category among many. In June 2025, after China tightened dual-use export controls, infrared sensor shipments to the United States dropped by an estimated 60% and module prices surged from roughly $400 to over $1,500, according to industry sources. In November 2025, Beijing imposed export licensing requirements on more than 20 categories of rare earth equipment, including a provision requiring Chinese government approval for re-exports of products containing Chinese rare earths anywhere in the w