China’s DJI Makes Trump a Coward at the Inauguration

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Biden’s sanctions on China’s DJI drones ended up causing trouble for Trump, leaving him unable to stand under the sunlight and relish his hard-earned victory on Inauguration Day. However, from the warning of U.S. intelligence agencies, this was, in a sense, karmic retribution for his assassination of Iranian General Soleimani.
January 20, 2025
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On January 20, Trump delivered his inaugural speech indoors at the U.S. Capitol, breaking with the longstanding tradition of holding the ceremony outdoors.

It typically results in a 60% reduction in the live audience size, that’s why for the past 40 years, no U.S. president has made this choice. So why would Trump, known for his love of the spotlight, make such a move?

CNN attributed it to “cold weather,” but the real reason might be that Trump was spooked by DJI, the Chinese drone manufacturer.

Trump had already survived two assassination attempts, prompting the Secret Service to take extraordinary security precautions for the inauguration. According to NBC, Special Agent Matt McCool, tasked with overseeing the president’s safety on Inauguration Day, noted that they had prepared for potential drone threats. While there are many ways to counter drones, the Ukraine War has shown that the safest strategy is simply to avoid exposure to the sky. Clearly, Trump’s security team took this lesson.

But why wasn’t Biden worried about drone threats at his inauguration? The answer lies in DJI’s geofencing system.

Since 2015, when a DJI drone accidentally entered White House airspace, the company has implemented geofencing technology at the request of the U.S. government. This system uses GPS to automatically block drones from flying over restricted areas like the White House, airports, and military bases. Thanks to DJI’s geofence system, the U.S. has avoided drone-related terrorism incidents for years.

However, on January 13, DJI announced the geofencing in the U.S. has unlocked, replacing its no-fly zones with “Enhanced Warning Zones.” This change meant that if a DJI drone flew over the White House, the system would only alert the operator, leaving it up to them to decide whether to leave the restricted area.

The US Secret Service released this photo of the DJI-made Phantom FC40 drone, left, that was found on the White House grounds on January 26, 2015. Photos: Reuters, AP

Foreign Policy raised alarms about this development, pointing out that just a month earlier, unidentified drones over New Jersey had caused nationwide panic, and the FBI had yet to uncover what happened. For U.S. law enforcement, with its limited counter-drone capabilities, DJI’s move “could be politically disastrous.”

However, the U.S. government has no one to blame but itself. In the first place, keeping drones out of restricted airspace is the U.S. government’s job—not DJI’s.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) admitted to Foreign Policy that the U.S. does not require drone manufacturers to include geofencing. In fact, other U.S. manufacturers, such as SkyDIO, sell drones without any built-in geofencing system, which means, for the past decade, DJI voluntarily maintained a massive geofencing system to protect U.S. national security—at its own expense.

However, instead of gratitude, the U.S. government added DJI to its list of “Chinese military companies” in October 2024, imposing sanctions under the guise of “national security threats.” Given this treatment, why should DJI continue sacrificing its profits to help the U.S. government? That’s why DJI has stopped providing geofencing services in the US.

According to Politico, the day after DJI removed its geofencing system on January 14, multiple U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies issued a joint warning that Trump’s inauguration was a “potential target” for threats because there are over 700,000 users on the Telegram threatening to assassinate Trump the day after the election, in response to a video posted by a media entity aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Perhaps if Trump hadn’t used a drone to assassinate Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in 2020, regardless of whether DJI had unlocked its geofencing system, he might not have been forced to move his inauguration indoors, staging a “tough guy” act under the Capitol’s iron dome.

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  1. As a patriot, Trump has nothing to worry about!!!

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