Weekly Roundup: Drones 'R U.S.

Plus, global trade regulation trackers & Yale's 1.4% tax woes

This week saw two new Executive Orders:

1. Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty establishes the Federal Task Force to Restore American Airspace Sovereignty (Task Force). The Task Force will “review relevant operational, technical, and regulatory frameworks and develop and propose solutions to UAS threats.” The threats listed in the EO include:

“criminals, terrorists, and hostile foreign actors” “drug cartels [using] UAS to smuggle fentanyl across our borders, deliver contraband into prisons, surveil law enforcement, and otherwise endanger the public. Mass gatherings are vulnerable to disruptions and threats by unauthorized UAS flights. Critical infrastructure, including military bases, is subject to frequent — and often unidentified — UAS incursions.”

2. Unleashing American Drone Dominance aims to accelerate UAS technology within the broader American infrastructure. It orders that the Secretary of Transportation propose rules for a policy that enables UAS testing beyond the line of sight, create a framework for deploying AI tools to assist in UAS waiver applications, as well as other programs to further integrate UAS capabilities into the U.S. ecosystem, including Made in America policies and supply chain weakness analysis.

• President Trump is also set to use the Defense Production Act to “slash legal requirements - including some congressional funding approvals - relating to a law aimed at lifting U.S. production of critical minerals and weapons.”

Watch dogs

• Citing censorship of “conservative ideas,” “The Federal Trade Commission is investigating whether roughly a dozen prominent advertising and advocacy groups violated antitrust law by coordinating boycotts among advertisers that did not want their brands to appear alongside hateful online content.” X is the driving force behind this investigation. It’s possible that this is not a conspiracy, but rather a platform failing in the marketplace of ideas—and the actual marketplace.

• The June 19 deadline for the TikTok ban looms, although it appears the PRC social media app will receive another reprieve. For a background on the ban, you can read this post:

• Reddit is suing Anthropic for unjust enrichment, claiming the AI company failed to get a license for its data.

• The Commerce Department is revamping its rules to allow satellite internet funding (read Starlink, although there are others). The ease in regulations will allow satellite internet companies to tap into $42.5 billion. It will be interesting to see if this administration can accelerate the movement of funds to infrastructure, after the Biden Administration, with the help of special interests, failed spectacularly to implement its own internet infrastructure projects.

• For a great read on the federal courts, a highly influential district court is reviewing this administration’s actions; check out this Lawfare Article.

International news

• Australians may soon join the EU in being able to download applications outside of the Apple App Store. This is the latest in a slew of bad antitrust news for Apple. For an in-depth (and not yet dated) analysis of the antitrust lawsuits, you can read this past post:

• TikTok has agreed to ban the skinnytok hashtag that led children to eating disorder content. The hashtag ban doesn’t affect content, however.

• The EU launched a platform that allows policymakers (and industry) to identify areas with an influx of goods. “With EU trading partners imposing an increasing number of restrictive measures on trade” the risk for redirecting of goods and “dumping” into the EU market are higher. This is a tracker to keep an eye on. If it is successful, it could drastically change arbitrage markets for regulators and market participants alike.

Lastly,

It’s easy to be reactionary these days about elite schools. They are a crucial part of our R&D infrastructure, yet something doesn’t feel right about their multi-billion-dollar endowments that are invested in private equity funds, while at the same time, taxpayers subsidize research funding through grants and student tuition through government-backed loans. Bloomberg published a story about how these universities are hedging their bets and shifting their funds to avoid the wrath of the current administration. One figure that stuck out to me:

Yale’s portfolio grew from $1 billion to $41 billion since 1985 and is taxed at a rate of 1.4%. A House bill would change that rate more in line with other capital gains tax rates.