Trade War drastically affected the Chinese Drones Industry

DJI has made several alterations to its online catalog and ratcheted up prices of a handful of its drones in the starting of September owing to the trade war. The China-based drone maker, DJI, is passing on the cost of President Donald Trump’s latest round of tariffs on imported Chinese goods to American buyers.

Most of the products on DJI’s online store were either taken down or went out of stock, some of these returned on Tuesday-with about 15% price bump.
DJI’s US store showed a 13% increase in the prices of the Mavic 2 line-up, which is slightly under the 15 percent figure President Donald Trump announced on Twitter late last month. Thus, Mavic 2 now costs $919 instead of $799.
Similarly, the DJI Mavic 2 Pro — which was crowned as the best drone of 2019 — will set you back by $1,729, up from $1,499.

Price hike likely to continue

“Due to the recent increase in tariffs, DJI has updated pricing for its products in the United States. We take many factors into account when recommending retail prices in different countries around the world, including tariff applications, tax rates and currency exchange fluctuations,” a DJI spokesperson said. “We follow all applicable laws and regulations in the countries where we operate and will continue to work toward making drone and handheld products more accessible to the world while supporting the many existing customers that use DJI technology daily.”

Moreover, the company’s web store also doesn’t have most of the DJI products yet except few which have been updated to reflect the 15% increase.
DJI has also removed some products from the store, although it’s unclear whether that’s tariff-related or due to inventory or product roadmap decisions. For instance, you can no longer buy the DJI Spark or Phantom 4 in the US from DJI directly, although the company is still selling accessories for both product lineups.
Due to the ongoing trade war between the two powers, there was a hike which went live on 1st September 2019, first of a two-part approach the U.S government planned for the year not affecting the consumer electronics.

DJI which is the largest commercial drone maker has also planned for a U.S military contract but is accused of sharing data with the Chinese government. Also, the Trump administration has concerns that DJI could be a national security threat. DJI dismissed the allegations and said they are “obviously false” and “unsubstantiated speculation.”