The Federal Trade Commission has banned the import of advanced foreign robots, including humanoids, quadrupeds, and wheeled models.
This move comes from a Trump-aligned agency citing two main fears. First, foreign devices collecting data inside homes or sensitive facilities could threaten national security. Second, US companies need protection from Chinese rivals to build a secure domestic supply chain.
Old tactics for a new target
This approach is not new to the Trump administration. Whenever China offers cheap versions of strategic tech like solar panels, electric vehicles, or drones, the US government has tried to stop the market flood using tariffs or government purchase rules.
These moves always spark debate about whether higher consumer prices are worth the benefits. But robotics is now seen as a core part of the AI industry. The administration is taking an aggressive stance to protect the US sector, reportedly considering a ban on open-source Chinese models that rival those from OpenAI and Anthropic while costing far less.
Such a move would block businesses from realising an estimated $25 billion in annual savings.
The ban on humanoids shows the administration is expanding protection beyond today’s leading labs. It is willing to step in for an emerging robotics sector that is still barely finding its footing.
Industry support and research hurdles
Some US robotics companies welcome the new rule. Gavin Kenneally, CEO of Ghost Robotics, which makes four-legged robots for inspections, says the cybersecurity risks from foreign-made robots are real. An FTC document cited an incident where a man gained control of 7,000 robot vacuum cleaners.
“If today’s announcement encourages stronger cybersecurity and a more level competitive environment, that’s good for customers and good for the robotics industry,” Kenneally said in an email.
But there is a major flaw if the rule aims to boost US firms. Those companies and academic labs rely heavily on cheap robots from China to do research. They build fleets that constantly learn new tasks—from flipping waffles to doing laundry—and frequently buy Chinese humanoids instead of US-made ones.
“Chinese models offer the best price-to-capability ratio available,” says Aaron Prather, director of market intelligence for the Association for Advancing Automation. Prather adds that a recent internal review found 90% of recent robotics research papers from US universities relied on robots from Unitree, China’s top humanoid robotics company.
The price gap can be huge. A four-legged robot from Unitree can cost around $4,600. A comparable one from Boston Dynamics might run to $278,000. If robotics research is stunted because these cheap robots are no longer available, the FTC ruling could slow down the industry, not boost it.
The US and Chinese robotics industries are in starkly different places. Unitree plans to go public this week, targeting a nearly $6 billion valuation. No robotics companies in the US offer any meaningful comparison, but those that do exist are undeniably moving fewer robots.
Figure’s humanoids are not yet selling at scale, and 1X’s robots aren’t yet shipping to homes. Work on humanoids is going increasingly mainstream, as a release from Google last week made clear. The company announced a new AI model meant to make humanoids learn new tasks faster; its most impressive ability appears to be tying a trash bag, but given how finicky robot hands are, that’s real progress.
Even though the many carve-outs in the FTC’s order make its practical impact hard to predict, its symbolic impact is easy to see. The administration sees humanoid robotics not as a novelty, but as a strategic frontier of AI worth protecting from foreign competition. For a technology that until recently was mostly known for falling over onstage, that’s a big change.
