China threatens retaliation against U.S. humanoid robot ban, says it ‘severely damages’ relations

BEIJING — The U.S. Federal Communications Commission has repeatedly ignored Beijing’s restrained stance on product bans, China’s commerce ministry said Thursday, threatening retaliation.

The FCC on Tuesday said due to cybersecurity concerns, it added foreign-made advanced robotic devices, including humanoids, to a list restricting imports to the U.S. The statement did not specify a country, and said retailers could still import models the FCC has previously approved.

As the FCC keeps escalating restrictions on Chinese goods, it “severely damages China-U.S. economic and trade stability,” China’s commerce ministry said in an online statement Thursday. That’s according to a CNBC translation of Mandarin.

The ministry urged the U.S. to withdraw the decision, and threatened countermeasures if it failed to do so.

“This is bad news for Chinese humanoid producers planning their IPOs in the coming months,” said Marc Einstein, a research director at Counterpoint Research. “The two major cards China can play are to further restrict rare earth sales to American companies and further restricting Chinese market access for American companies like Tesla and NVIDIA.”

The commerce ministry’s statement comes as U.S. President Donald Trump is scheduled to host Chinese President Xi Jinping in September. Tensions over the tech race have meanwhile intensified, with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent saying the U.S. could sanction China over AI model “theft.”

Trump on Thursday indicated in public comments that the U.S. might take a more cautious stance on AI controls in order to maintain American tech leadership over China.

Chinese companies Agibot, Unitree and UBTech accounted for the top-three humanoid companies by installation market share last year, according to Counterpoint. Tesla’s Optimus ranked fifth.

Hong Kong-listed UBTech shares briefly fell more than 6% in Thursday morning trading. Unitree and Agibot have filed to go public.

Robostore, a distributor of Chinese humanoid robots in North America, has been preparing by expanding its U.S.-based capabilities, CEO Teddy Haggerty said in a statement to CNBC. He did not elaborate on details.

—CNBC’s Matthew Tan contributed to this report.