A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Many of the world's drone companies use parts from China, but China is cutting some American drone makers off through sanctions, part of its retaliation last month for U.S. tariffs. As NPR's Emily Feng reports, Taiwan says it can help.
EMILY FENG, HOST:
Esina Alic is the CEO of American drone company RapidFlight in Manassas, Virginia, and she's showing me around.
ESINA ALIC: Let's keep going over here.
FENG: She leads me to a room filled with rows and rows of 3D printers making tiny drone parts. The room is warm from their mechanical exertions.
So this is your production floor.
ALIC: This is our production floor.
FENG: It's so quiet in here.
ALIC: Yes.
FENG: China sanctioned RapidFlight in March in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. CEO Alec is not phased. Unlike several other sanctioned U.S. drone companies, RapidFlight does not source from China. Alec says this is a reminder, though, of just how precarious supply chains have become for American drone makers, and the company has been preparing for just such a scenario.
ALIC: You can go to any international manufacturer and when one has a limited capability, a capacity, we can go to the other one and interchange them very quickly.
FENG: And they've got another card up their sleeve.
GENE SU: I'm general manager of Thunder Tiger.
FENG: This is Gene Su, a Taiwanese entrepreneur and engineer. His company, Thunder Tiger, signed an agreement with RapidFlight last year to make some of the Taiwanese company's parts in the U.S. with RapidFlight and vice versa. For example, Su has been struggling to find a special kind of camera.
SU: Taiwan does not have that camera yet, so we have to work closely with Israel. And unfortunately, they are very busy due to the war.
FENG: A war with Hamas. Ideally, Thunder Tiger would buy from the U.S. because Su sees them in Taiwan as having a shared competitor - China, which has repeatedly said it could invade Taiwan. Defense companies in the U.S. and Taiwan have been trying to team up for some time now, especially after Russia's war in Ukraine.
JOE DU: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: This is Joe Du (ph). He's a Taiwanese entrepreneur who makes special radio communication equipment put on Taiwanese military-grade drones. He says Ukraine showed Taiwan the need for drones.
DU: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: "And Taiwan," he says, "has a ton of drone makers." But they're struggling to get off the ground because...
DU: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: Du says they don't have enough demand, so Taiwan's government is trying to facilitate American partnerships. A key agency is the Taiwanese military's in-house research and development center.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: Which I visited outside Taipei a few months ago. The vice director of the center, Jian Dinghua (ph), says Taiwan's military already makes big drones.
JIAN DINGHUA: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: But they want to manufacture small, cheap, disposable drones. They'll need thousands of these a week if there is war. And one place to learn from is the U.S. But even within government agencies like this one, there's been pushback, says Stellar Shu, a defense analyst at Taiwan's defense ministry think tank.
STELLAR SHU: (Speaking Mandarin).
FENG: He says young officials have embraced new ideas of war, but they're stopped cold by Taiwan's top military brass. They historically favor big equipment like tanks and missiles, not small drones. Sometimes, changing minds is the hardest part.
Emily Feng, NPR News, Manassas, Virginia.
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