“Foreign-Produced” Is a Buy American Test

Every account of the FCC’s July 28 Covered List additions describes them the same way: a China rule. Chinese robots, Chinese inverters, kept out of the American market. That reading is not wrong about the intent. It is wrong about the mechanism — and the mechanism is what a compliance officer actually has to work with.

The operative word in both new entries is “foreign-produced.” Both National Security Determinations define it, and as adopted on July 27, 2026 they defined it identically:

“For the purpose of this determination, the term ‘foreign-produced’ refers to any article that would not qualify as a ‘domestic end product,’ as that term is defined in 48 CFR § 25.101(a).”

Correction, August 20, 2026: that shared definition still stands for advanced robotic devices. For power inverters, DA 26-870 replaced it with a two-pronged test — 25.101(a) or section 45X eligibility. Everything below about prong (1), the content floor and allied-country production remains accurate for robotics, and remains accurate for inverters whenever the 25.101(a) route is the one being relied on.

That citation is the whole story. Section 25.101(a) is the Buy American statute’s implementing test in the Federal Acquisition Regulation — a procurement standard, imported wholesale into a national-security authorization. The consequences run in directions the headlines do not.

The test, in the regulation’s own words

FAR 25.101(a) sets a two-part test for a manufactured end product:

“(1) The article must be manufactured in the United States; and (2)(i) … the cost of domestic components shall exceed 60 percent of the cost of all the components, except that the percentage will be 65 percent for items delivered in calendar years 2024 through 2028 and 75 percent for items delivered starting in calendar year 2029.”

The same paragraph waives that content test for commercially available off-the-shelf items, and prong (1) does not move for anyone. That waiver does not travel into these two entries. The Commission’s FAQ on the advanced-robotics and power-inverter listings states that the off-the-shelf exception is “inapplicable” to whether a device is a “domestic end product” under section 25.101(a) — said of both categories — and that COTS components are “still counted” toward the calculation. It is a feature of the procurement standard, not an exit from coverage.

So coverage does not turn on the nationality of a manufacturer, on its ownership, or on the provenance of its parts in the abstract. It turns on whether a specific product, as delivered, was manufactured in the United States and carries enough domestic content by cost.

Allied-country production is inside the definition, not outside it

A robot or an inverter built in Canada is foreign-produced. So is one built in Korea, Japan, Germany, Mexico or Taiwan. “Built in North America” is not a defense, because North America is not the test; manufacture in the United States is.

It is worth naming the exit that does not exist, because it is the one people reach for. FAR Part 25 contains a separate concept — the “designated country end product” — under which goods from trade-agreement partners are treated as eligible in covered acquisitions. The determinations do not cite it. They cite 25.101(a), the domestic-end-product test, and nothing else. A trade agreement does not convert a foreign-produced article into a domestic one for these purposes.

US final assembly alone does not settle it either

Clearing prong (1) is necessary and not sufficient. A product manufactured in the United States still has to clear the domestic component-cost floor — currently 65 percent, rising to 75 percent for items delivered from calendar year 2029. There is no off-the-shelf relief from that floor for these categories, and no vendor position should be built on one.

That threshold step is a dated event on a compliance calendar, not a rhetorical one. A product line that clears 65 percent today and sits at 68 percent has a problem arriving on a known date.

For robotics there is exactly one exit, and it is the narrowest in the regime

The four covered categories do not carry the same escape routes, and the differences are not decorative:

• UAS and UAS critical components — Conditional Approval by DoW or DHS; plus the DCMA Blue UAS Cleared List; plus Buy American domestic end products; plus foreign-produced “toy drones,” exempted by public notice in June 2026.
• Routers — Conditional Approval by DoW or DHS.
• Power inverters — Conditional Approval by DoW or DHS. As of DA 26-870 (August 20, 2026), an inverter also falls outside the definition entirely if it is eligible for the section 45X credit, and coverage now reaches only utility-interactive units.
• Advanced robotic devices — Conditional Approval by DoW. That is the entire list.

There is no DHS route for robotics, no Blue-list analogue, and no category-level exemption of any kind. And for both new categories the guidance sets a hard filing window: applications must be submitted by January 1, 2028.

One structural asymmetry deserves attention from anyone who works across the categories. In the UAS entry, the Buy American concept appears as an exception, and that exception carries a sunset — January 1, 2028. For inverters and advanced robotic devices, the same concept is the coverage definition, and definitions do not sunset. The test that expires for drones is the test that constitutes the category for robots.

The question to put to a vendor

“Where is it assembled?” does not resolve anything. Four questions do:

• Does this product qualify as a domestic end product under 48 CFR 25.101(a), as delivered?
• If you are relying on the content test, show the math — domestic component cost over total component cost, by line item.
• Does any part of this position rely on COTS treatment? If so, it fails: the Commission’s FAQ on these two entries states the commercially available off-the-shelf exception is “inapplicable” to domestic-end-product status under section 25.101(a), and that COTS components are “still counted” toward the calculation.
• What happens to that math on January 1, 2029, when the floor moves to 75 percent?

A vendor who can answer all four has a file. A vendor who answers the first with a country name has a marketing claim, and the difference between those two things is the entire exposure. Corrected September 8, 2026: an earlier version of this article treated the commercially available off-the-shelf exception as an available basis for a not-covered position — the third question above invited a vendor to rely on it, and two passages earlier in the article described the content test as waived for off-the-shelf items. That route is foreclosed for these two entries. The Commission’s FAQ on the advanced-robotics and power-inverter listings states that the off-the-shelf exception is inapplicable to domestic-end-product status under 48 CFR 25.101(a), and that COTS components are still counted toward the calculation. The exception remains a real feature of FAR Part 25 in ordinary procurement; it does not reach these listings. One further correction in the same passage: the earlier text described the content floor as waived “by statute,” and the floor is regulatory — it is set by the FAR final rule at 87 FR 12780 (March 7, 2022), not by Congress.

For a manufacturer outside the United States

The definition is not a verdict. It sets the terms of the only conversation available: a Conditional Approval, reviewed by the Department of War for robotics and by DoW or DHS for inverters, supported by a per-component bill of materials with country of origin, an ownership structure disclosed to the five percent beneficial-owner level, and a time-bound onshoring plan with quarterly status reporting to the issuing agency. Applications close January 1, 2028, and the register shows the Commission granting in batches, not on demand.

The manufacturers who fare well in that process are the ones who assemble the evidence before it is requested, rather than after. That is what the Gatewell Protocol exists to paper.

Updated August 20, 2026 to reflect Public Notice DA 26-870, read in full against the primary text the day it issued. Originally verified against the primary texts on August 19, 2026 — the Advanced Robotics and Power Inverters National Security Determinations dated July 27, 2026, and 48 CFR § 25.101 as published in the current eCFR. This regime moves quickly; verify the current posture before relying on any of it, including this reading.