Description
WASHINGTON (TNND) — President Donald Trump is threatening a 100% tariff on all foreign-made movies due to a "dying" movie industry in America.
Trump wrote Sunday on his Truth Social platform that he had authorized the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to "begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands."
“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death," he wrote, while also complaining that other countries "are offering all sorts of incentives to draw" filmmakers and studios away from the U.S. "This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!"
It wasn’t immediately clear how any such tariff on international productions could be implemented. It’s common for both large and small films to include production in the U.S.
Incentive programs for years have influenced where movies are shot, increasingly driving film production out of California and to other states and countries with favorable tax incentives, like Canada and the United Kingdom.
Yet Trump's tariffs are designed to lead consumers toward American products. And in movie theaters, American-produced movies overwhelmingly dominate the domestic marketplace.
The Motion Picture Association (MPA), which represents major U.S. film studios and streaming services, has yet to respond to Trump's statement.
A 2023 economic report from MPA details how American movies produced $22.6 billion in exports and $15.3 billion in trade surplus.
U.S. film and television production has been hampered in recent years, with setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hollywood guild strikes of 2023 and the recent wildfires in the Los Angeles area. Overall production in the U.S. was down 26% last year compared with 2021, according to data from ProdPro, which tracks production.
Shortly before taking office, Trump announced he was making actors Mel Gibson, Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone "special ambassadors" to Hollywood to help bring it "BACK — BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!"
"These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest," the president wrote on his social media platform. "It will again be, like The United States of America itself, The Golden Age of Hollywood!"
At the White House Sunday night, Trump claimed that "other nations have been stealing the movie-making capabilities from the United States."
“If they’re not willing to make a movie inside the United States, we should have a tariff on movies that come in," he told reporters.
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Editor's note: The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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