Dji “remains attached to the American market” while the shelves are safe from drones

Does Dji come out of the American drone market? The company says no – but it will not explain The penis Which has changed so that he can’t even keep a single drone on the shelves.

When I entered my local Best Buy store today, on June 24, no DJI drone was available for purchase. There was not even an empty place so that each drone went. The entire DJI aisle had been swept away price labels, lockers and products – except a handful of motorized units, action cameras, a single lonely RC controller and an almost empty first -rate PAP place where a flagship drone would normally go.

“We no longer really wear DJI drones because of the American-Chinese thing,” said an employee of the store.

The best purchase is not alone. DJI’s own American online store no longer has any drones in stock, as Dronej reported Monday. Although DJI has an official presence on Amazon, all remaining drones are sold by third parties with small or unknown quantities of stock. The Best Buy’s website will not be much more aid either than its physical store: from Tuesday, its remaining DJI drones are the latest generation Mavic 3 pro, at a price of $ 3890, a renovated version of this same Mavic 3 Pro and a renovated version of 2022 DJI Avata. Dji has already published successors for both.

Even Adorama and B&H, specialized cameras stores seem to be low on late model DJI drones. On Tuesday, most current generation drones were listed as “temporarily on orders under break” or “temporarily out of stock”, except This specific model of the Dji Air 3sthese two specific models of the Dji Flipand some variants of the budget Dji Neo.

What’s going on? DJI spokesperson Daisy Kong shared the same explanation that Dji shared In the past eight monthsAccusing American customs of unfairly examining their imports of drones. Here is the latest version:

Dji remains attached to the American market. As we have already shared, Dji has worked with customs and the protection of American borders (CBP) to resolve a misunderstanding on the personality. Unfortunately, this had an impact on our ability to store and import drones and parts. We understand the frustration of our customers, but we hope it will be resolved.

When we asked Dji if another factor could be responsible – like the United States prices on Chinaor the own export controls of China which would have seen the prices of triple drone components for American buyers – The company no longer made any comments. Companies like Dji are wary of blaming the leaders of one or the other country.

In October 2024, DJI told its partners that the “misunderstanding” was that the customs and the protection of American border had citing the ulghur forced labor prevention law (UFLPA) as a reason to prevent DJI drones from being imported in the United States, following the reports that DJI provided drones to the Chinese government so that it could proceed to monitoring the UYGHOURS. (The penis did not independently confirmed these reports, Dji denied He manufactures anything in the Xinjiang where China uses forced work, and DJI is not an entity listed under UFLPA.)

It should be noted that we have never heard the side of DJI of this story: to our knowledge, customs and protection of American borders have never commented on the blocking of imports of DJI drones. CBP did not respond to The penisThe request for comments from last year, and that did not immediately have an answer today.

Best Buy refused to The penis that he no longer transports DJI drones, without offering other explanations. A company spokesperson, an anonymous responding from the e-mail address of the Best Buy press, did not provide a name when we asked.

If Dji decided to proactively leaving the American drone market, or if Best Buy had decided to practively reduce links, it would not be so surprising. Business less than six months old Before a de facto ban on all its new products entering the United States, unless He can convince the US government to audit 1) audit the company and 2) make this audit positively confirm that the dronemaker does not represent a national security threat. It is a very high bar.

In February, the DJI public policy chief suggested that in the event of an American ban, DJI can continue to sell current products in the United States while it offers new products elsewhere, in an interview The penis. But this already occurs before a potential ban. In May, The company has jumped the United States with its most advanced drone to date, the Mavic 4 Pro.

In addition to the drones themselves, the DJI assistance site now warns that this can take 60 to 90 days for repairs. And in May, we pointed out how Dji’s consecutive price increases took The popular Osmo Pocket 3 camera from $ 519 to $ 799 in just two months. There, Dji was willing to say that the American-Chinese prices were “among the key considerations”.