By Rajwa Quasim
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced a ban on foreign-made humanoid robots and power inverters. This is in a move to protect the U.S. AI buildout from national security threats, and to ultimately bring back manufacturing and development to American soil.
The prohibition bars import of new Chinese-made humanoid and quadruped robots along with inverters that let renewable energy sources, batteries connected to power grids, and data center equipment.
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“These devices could create supply chain vulnerabilities that could disrupt U.S. economic and national security and could create a cybersecurity risk that threatened American critical infrastructure,” the FCC said in a statement. “The FCC will continue to do our part to secure America’s critical supply chains,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr added in the press release.
The ban announced is not retroactive which means it applies only to robot and invertor models that have not yet been released or new versions. That said, the FCC retains the power to revoke authorizations for models that have already been cleared for sale in the U.S.
The Chinese embassy in Washington said Beijing “urges the United States to heed the objective and rational voices of the business communities in both countries” and “stop smearing Chinese companies and threatening them with sanctions.” They further added, “take all necessary measures in response to any action that causes material harm to its interests.”
Sources close to the matter also indicated that the FCC is expected to exempt many non-Chinese suppliers from the restrictions. A similar approach has been taken in the past, banning foreign drones and routers. Yahoo News reported that the ban followed a review by an interagency national security panel convened by the White House. It said that interconnected robots could pose data privacy risks and cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
The robots “collect data that could be leveraged by malign actors to surveil Americans, enhance the capabilities of foreign intelligence services, or to remotely commandeer the robots,” the FCC document said. Most humanoid robots sold in the country today are built abroad, particularly in China. China’s global market share for humanoid robots is roughly 85%, dominating the global supply chain.
This move follows Trump administration’s broader posture on curbing imports of Chinese products to the U.S., including drones, and controlling Chinese open-source AI models. The U.S. is trying to avoid the situation that happened with rare earth minerals, where China was able to negotiate on various international platforms easily as they dominated the supply of rare earth minerals.
During Trump’s first term, he was known to draw international attention to China-linked tech threats, concerns about intellectual property theft and state sponsored espionage risks tied to telecom giants like Huawei.
As Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to meet Trump in September, Samm Sacks, a senior fellow at the New America thinktank focused on Chinese technology policies, said, “it’s a steady drumbeat of potential flashpoints heading into (the) Trump-Xi summit planned for September.”
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The proposed ban is expected to affect Chinese firms like Unitree which holds nearly one-fifth of the global humanoid robot market. Recently, Unitree has partnered with Nvidia to power its humanoid robots using Blackwell AI chips.
Nvidia said the data will remain in the U.S. and that Unitree’s main U.S. customers are academic and research institutions. As per the reports, two Chinese firms, Unitree and AGIBOT imported 5,000 humanoid robots each, out of total 15,000 shipped globally in 2025. With the proposed ban, Beijing must diversify its market.