America has intensified its efforts to keep Chinese drones out of U.S. markets (and our airspace), leaving the door open for a revitalized domestic market to fill the void. And one of the largest manufacturing epicenters in the U.S. is stepping up.
Last summer, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed Executive Directive 2025-4, officially launching the Michigan Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Initiative. I stress officially, because the “Great Lakes State” is already ideally-positioned as a manufacturing hub, with ample AAM assets and mil/aero infrastructure.
The Michigan Airspace Complex takes up 17,000 square miles, centered around Camp Grayling and the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, and is the largest overland military training airspace east of the Mississippi River. This includes the Michigan National All-Domain Warfighting Center (NADWC) and its nearly 148,000 acres of training space.
More specifically, Michigan has nine active drone test sites, including a 40-mile drone corridor between Ann Arbor and Detroit and a 60-mile beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) corridor.
All told, Michigan’s defense industry generates $30 billion in economic activity.
And of course, through ups and downs, Michigan has been America’s automotive manufacturing nucleus for well over a century. That same high density of engineering talent and skilled manufacturing labor can be leveraged for AAM initiatives.
According to a 2025 report by the Michigan Office of Future Mobility & Electrification, “Michigan ranks first in the nation for its concentration of engineers, with nearly 255,000 skilled trades workers across the state, the eighth largest skilled trade workforce in the country.”
Moreover, Michigan’s diverse network of all-weather sites and unique landscape and infrastructure allow for testing in all manner of maritime, land, and air wartime scenarios.
That said, leveraging the state’s automotive expertise to build drones won’t be a simple transition, with the report acknowledging that suppliers must go from “high-volume, standardized production to more flexible, agile, high-mix, low-volume operations.”
But the opening is there. In December 2025, the FCC prohibited the import and operation of new, Chinese drones in U.S. airspace, while the American Security Drone Act of 2023 outright bans federal agencies from purchasing or using drones produced in China.
And the Unleashing American Drone Dominance Executive Federal Orders, issued by President Trump in June 2025, was a shot in the arm for the domestic drone industry – precipitating, among other things, Michigan’s Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Initiative.
By 2030, the initiative aims to give Michigan “more high-growth drone companies than anywhere in the world” – an extremely ambitious goal, given that China currently has about 1,700 drone-related companies generating $10 billion+ annually.
But the opportunity is definitely there, and who better to step up to the plate than the Motor City?
