It’s hard to say on this one. There is a pretty extensive history of Chinese govt spying via consumer products [0]. Having worked formerly with the intelligence community, they tend not to tip their hand when they are aware of asymmetrical information.

It’s plausible that the determination was made that there were backdoors/spy equipment/whatever in the products, so no audit or smooth talking from corp representatives would make a difference in this case, given the supply chain remains controlled by an adversary. If you don’t trust that an audit can be executed with integrity then there’s not much point in conducting one at all.

The fact that this has been extended to all foreign drones does make that feel like more of a political statement though, or at the very least the original intent is being hijacked for political theater.

0. https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/cybersecurity-advisories/aa...