US Chinese robot ban won't save robotics, solar precedent shows

The US Federal Communications Commission, led by Chairman Brendan Carr, has added foreign-made humanoid robots, quadrupeds, and power inverters to its Covered List, effectively barring them from being sold in the United States. The official justification is cybersecurity and supply-chain risk, but the unstated motive is arithmetic: Chinese manufacturers account for roughly 85% of the global humanoid robot market, leaving no established American industry to protect—only an emerging one being sheltered behind a wall. Evan Beard, CEO of US robotics firm Standard Bots, praised the order as one of the strongest technology-security actions in modern American history, vowing that foreign-subsidised machines would not dominate US robotics as they did solar.

However, the order draws a telling exception: the federal government is exempt, meaning it can keep buying the very machines deemed too dangerous for ordinary citizens. Critics see this as a tariff dressed in security language rather than a genuine threat assessment. The comparison to solar is instructive—Washington began taxing Chinese panels in 2012 under the Obama administration, yet China now controls over 80% of every stage of global solar panel manufacturing. The wall only decided who could sell to Americans, not who won the industry. By fencing off competition, the US may delay the inevitable rather than strengthen its own robotics sector.