Drones are not yet an "essential" piece of technology for the country as a whole. We're currently at "cutting ourselves off at the toe" territory... in a few years we'd be even more dependent and legislation like this would be catastrophic. Better now than in the 2026.
Presumably this is the actual answer—they're just better at manufacturing than we are at this point. By a large margin, as well. There is no shortcut to reversing decades and decades of shipping entire supply chains overseas at greatly reduced cost. We're just going to get substandard products at a greater cost to both the taxpayer (subsidy option) and the consumer (market option).
> How could the US build out a competitive drone industry with chinese manufacturers able to cut price because the Chinese government will cover the gap?
You swallow your losses until you automate your way out of a labor disadvantage or give up. Frankly the only reason this is getting attention is because it's seen as a military asset. It's basically burning cash to make the pentagon feel better about itself and generate a few hundred jobs at great cost to the taxpayer and pretending this is making some effort towards something valuable.
1.) China is supporting Russia militarily and financially on its invasion of Ukraine and attack on Europe
2.) China is lead by a dictator that has threatened time and time again to unify with Taiwan militarily if needed. And has boosted military presence threats on Taiwan, case in point, recent missile "drills". Taiwan right now is the most important technology driver of all things AI related
3.) China is attacking US in many sectors via state sponsorship of an industry to undercut and destroy an entire foreign sector companies, and IP theft. Happened before with solar.