FCC expands Covered List as Commerce stalls on ICTS

The article argues that the FCC has overtaken the Commerce Department’s OICTS in regulating foreign technology for national security purposes.

• The FCC has expanded its Covered List rapidly in 2025–2026, adding categories such as UAS/drones, routers (March 2026), power inverters (July 2026), and advanced robotic devices (July 2026), and has also moved to bar telecom interconnection and restrict some entities from operating data centers and other infrastructure.
• The piece contrasts this with the Commerce Department’s OICTS, which had previously issued actions on Kaspersky Lab, connected vehicles, cloud computing and data center products and services, and UAS, but has made no major new moves under the second Trump administration; it is commentary/analysis rather than a new first-time announcement.