The FCC has proposed cutting 9 drone and camera makers off from the American market. One of them says the decision was arbitrary. Guangzhou Xaircraft, which sells farm spraying drones as XAG, filed 20 pages against the proposal on 31 August.
Eight of the nine are accused of copying hardware. The Commission’s July notice names Cogito, Fikaxo, Lyno Dynamics, Skyhigh Tech, Spatial Hover, SZ Knowact, WaveGo and Xtra Technology. It says they make clones or rebrands of equipment listed in Section 1709 of the FY2025 defence act, and that all eight ignored a letter of inquiry from the Enforcement Bureau.
XAG answered its letter. That is the basis of its argument.
The paperwork and the punishment
The inquiry sent to XAG on 9 April was not about clones. It concerned a failure to keep its US agent for service of process up to date, and XAG says it never saw the letter because the agent, Pegasus, did not forward it.
The company hired a replacement agent on 20 May and told the Enforcement Bureau on 4 June. On 16 July the engineering office temporarily deferred its grantee code anyway. The public notice followed the next day.
XAG’s lawyers at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman call that arbitrary and capricious action under the Administrative Procedure Act. The notice alleges nothing against XAG except that its equipment is made in a foreign country. That fits every foreign maker added to the Covered List in December 2025, and almost none of them are in the proposal. XAG’s factory is in Dongguan, in Guangdong province, a fact the Commission took from XAG’s own answer.
One request did not land well. XAG had asked for 60 more days on two questions while it sought a ruling from China’s commerce ministry on whether export controls allowed it to answer. The FCC denied the extension and added a footnote: “Needless to say, there is no exception to the requirement to respond” because a foreign government might object.
The farmers in the file
The economic objections come from the people who sell and fly the aircraft. Rize UAV, a Colorado dealer working precision agriculture and solar farms, called the prohibition “particularly devastating”. Imported dealer stock would be stranded with no legal way to sell it, and fleets already flying would lose their route to spare parts.
Reality Capture & Consulting, a Texas mapping company, wrote that the proposal “would eliminate small agricultural and mapping drone businesses” and does not distinguish a surveillance platform from a sprayer.
The trade body took the other side. Scott Shtofman, vice president and counsel for regulatory affairs at AUVSI, filed on 31 August that “AUVSI does not oppose the proposed prohibition. AUVSI supports it.” His argument is that the named equipment was built to route around a rule already in force, and that compliant manufacturers carry the cost of that.
XAG also objects to being tied to a Chinese military designation. It says an investment partnership holds a small non-participating stake with no say in operations, and calls the contrary suggestion false.
The record on the July proposal closed on 31 August. The second half of the same docket, covering Anzu Robotics, closes on 23 September.
