Trump’s new mission: to save Hollywood
5 May 09:34
On Sunday, US President Donald Trump announced the introduction of a 100% tariff on films produced outside the United States. According to him, the American film industry is experiencing a “very fast death” because of the benefits that other countries offer to attract filmmakers. This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to Reuters.
“This is a concerted effort by other states and, accordingly, a threat to national security. Among other things, it is also a matter of information influence and propaganda,”
– Trump said in a post on the Truth Social platform.
He said that he had instructed the relevant government agencies, including the U.S. Department of Commerce, to immediately begin the process of imposing a 100% duty on all films produced abroad and then imported into the United States.
“WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA AGAIN!”
– wrote the US President.
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick responded on the social network X:
“We’re already working on it.”
Neither Lutnick nor Trump provided any details on the mechanism for implementing the tariffs.
It remains unclear whether the tariffs will apply to films on streaming platforms or only to those shown in theaters. It is also unclear whether the tariff will be calculated on the basis of production costs or box office receipts. Hollywood executives were trying to figure out the details on Sunday night. The Motion Picture Association, which represents major studios, has not yet commented.
In January, Trump appointed Hollywood veterans Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone, and Mel Gibson as special ambassadors to revive Hollywood “bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.”
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Things are bad in Hollywood
Film and TV production has been leaving Hollywood for years, moving to places with tax incentives that make filming cheaper.
Governments around the world have increased tax credits and cash refunds to attract film production and to get a bigger share of the $248 billion that Ampere Analysis predicts will be spent globally on content production in 2025.
All the major media companies, including Walt Disney, Netflix, and Universal Pictures, are making movies abroad in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom.
In 2023, about half of the spending on film and TV projects with budgets over $40 million went outside the United States, according to research company ProdPro.
Film and television production has declined by nearly 40% over the past decade in Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood, according to FilmLA, a nonprofit organization that tracks production in the region.
January’s wildfires have fueled fears that producers may look for locations outside of Los Angeles, and that cinematographers, costume designers, sound technicians and other behind-the-scenes workers may move out of town rather than try to rebuild their neighborhoods.
A survey of executives conducted by ProdPro found that California ranks only sixth among the most desirable locations for filming in the next two years, behind Toronto, the United Kingdom, Vancouver, Central Europe and Australia.
Hollywood producers and labor unions are calling on Governor Gavin Newsom to increase the state’s tax incentives to better compete with other locations.
At the same time, former senior Commerce Department official William Reinsch, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that retaliation against Trump’s film tariffs could have devastating consequences.
“Retaliation will destroy our industry. We have much more losses than gains,”
– he said, adding that it would be difficult to justify the case of films as a matter of national security or a national emergency.
Cinematic wars
Trump’s proposed tariff on movies is a continuation of a series of trade conflicts initiated by his administration that have roiled markets and led to fears of a possible recession in the United States.
Moreover, it was China, not the United States, that first played the cinematic card in this war. In April, in response to another increase in trade tariffs, China announced a significant reduction in imports of Hollywood films. It turns out that even before that, China imported up to ten American films annually, and now there will be even fewer of them on Chinese big screens.
Experts then voiced the opinion that such a bold move would not go unnoticed by Washington, so Trump’s new measures are likely to be Trump’s response to it.
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