US builds walls around drones and robots, but China has the volume to bypass them

The Biden administration eased restrictions in July and August on advanced foreign-made robotic systems, and imposed heavy tariffs on imported drones and their components, steps that take effect in September for drones and in 2027 for the components, all on national-security grounds. The moves join the FCC’s Covered List, which began in 2021 with communications and surveillance gear from Huawei, ZTE and HIKVISION, expanded to drones and now also covers advanced robotic devices. The question hanging over the global industry is where competition shifts when the US market closes to Chinese manufacturers.

Counterpoint data expose the depth of the gap: in the first half of 2026, 22 thousand humanoid robot shipments were recorded worldwide, the overwhelming majority Chinese-made. The five largest manufacturers by shipment volume—AgiBot, Unitree, Galbot, UBTECH and Leju Robotics—are all Chinese and together hold 86% of the global market. According to Soumen Mandal, chief analyst at Counterpoint, US companies operate at a much smaller scale. “You cannot bypass a cost curve with sanctions, you can only build the way out of it, and the US has not yet started the decade-long investment required for that,” said Ankur Saxena, investment director at TDK Ventures.

The Chinese advantage is not limited to volume. Manufacturers such as Unitree develop many components in-house, and automotive makers like XPeng leverage chip and vehicle-production experience for robotics. Mandal notes that this vertical integration, together with an existing manufacturing base, pushes costs down faster than Western rivals can. Saxena sums the split: the US leads in front-end AI, software and chips; China leads in production volume, supply-chain depth and cost. The result is that Chinese humanoid robots become cheaper at a pace most US competitors cannot match.

Analysts and executives who spoke to TechCrunch say the emerging picture is not a clean split between the US and China, but a fragmented global market. Chinese firms will expand in the large domestic market and price-sensitive regions with severe labour shortages, Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America, while US manufacturers and allies will focus on markets where security and geopolitics dictate the choice. The restrictions protect a slice of the US market, but do not address the Chinese manufacturing advantage that continues to gain momentum outside US borders.