It’s all about economics. The market demand is already in place. The supply side is the problem.
The few US drone companies that exist can’t compete with Chinese drones on price, features and reliability. There’s no economic incentive for US companies to reverse engineer Chinese drones and it’s not as easy as it sounds. The US doesn’t manufacture most of the large scale integrated circuits used in Chinese drones so that’s a big stumbling block. US labor prices are sky high compared to dirt cheap wages in China. The Chinese government is surely subsidizing their drone industry while the US isn’t doing that.
If we shut off the supply of Chinese drones now, it will only slow down the entire US effort to become competitive because demand will dry up. No one is going to buy a US drone for $19,000 for recreation, which is the largest demand factor.
Rather than shutting off the supply of Chinese drones, I would impose tariffs on them and give US companies big tax breaks based on the number of drones that they sell in the US. The more drones they sell in the US, the lower their taxes would be. That would give them an incentive to lower prices, improve features and reliability.
Tariffs aren’t the answer to all trade problems but this is an area where tariffs would help. We don’t sell any drones in China so it wouldn’t affect our sales if they retaliate with their own tariffs.
Government subsidies and tax breaks for those who buy US made drones would also help. That’s what we did for ADS-B. I bought my ADS-B transponder partly with a FAA rebate. Subsidizing the drone making companies is less direct than subsidizing buyers. You can’t be sure that corporate subsidies will have the desired effect on increased sales since there are so many factors at play.
Lastly, US drone manufacturers need to hire truly talented hardware and software engineers and pay them accordingly. Right now we pay CEOs and senior managers a lot more than most engineers. I think that gets it backward. Look at Boeing’s problems for doing that for the last decade.