President Donald Trump is opening a new salvo in his tariff war, targeting films made outside the US.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he has authorised the Department of Commerce and the Office of the US Trade Representative to slap 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, complaining that other countries “are offering all sorts of incentives to draw” filmmakers and studios away from the US.
“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 smaller films to include production both in the US and other countries. Big-budget movies such as the upcoming Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, for instance, were shot around the world.
Incentive programmes for years have influenced where movies were shot, increasingly driving film production out of California and to other states and countries with favourable tax incentives — such as Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
Yet tariffs were designed to lead consumers toward American products. In movie theatres, American-produced movies overwhelming dominated the domestic marketplace.
China has ramped up its domestic movie production, culminating in the animated blockbuster Ne Zha 2 grossing more than US$2 billion (NZ$3.3 billion) this year. But even then, its sales came almost entirely from mainland China. In North America, in earned just US$20.9 million (NZ$34.9 million).
The MPA’s data shows how much Hollywood exports have dominated cinemas. According to the MPA, the American movies produced US$22.6 billion (NZ$37.7 billion) in exports and US$15.3 billion (NZ$25.5 billion) in trade surplus in 2023.
Trump has made good on the “tariff man” label he gave himself years ago, slapping new taxes on goods made in countries around the globe. That included a 145% tariff on Chinese goods and a 10% baseline tariff on goods from other countries, with even higher levies threatened.
By unilaterally imposing tariffs, Trump has exerted extraordinary influence over the flow of commerce, creating political risks and pulling the market in different directions. There were tariffs on autos, steel and aluminium, with more imports, including pharmaceutical drugs, set to be subject to new tariffs in the weeks ahead.
‘Stealing movie-making capabilities from the US’
Trump has long voiced concern about movie production moving overseas.
Shortly before he took office, he announced that he had tapped actors Mel Gibson, Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone to serve as “special ambassadors” to Hollywood to bring it “BACK—BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”
US film and television production has been hampered in recent years, with setbacks from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Hollywood guild strikes of 2023 and recent wildfires in the Los Angeles area. Overall production in the US was down 26% last year compared with 2021, according to data from ProdPro, which tracked production.
The group’s annual survey of executives, which asked about preferred filming locations, found no location in the US made the top five, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Toronto, the UK, Vancouver, Central Europe and Australia came out on top, with California placing sixth, Georgia seventh, New Jersey eighth and New York ninth.
The problem was especially acute in California. In the greater Los Angeles area, production last year was down 5.6% from 2023 according to FilmLA, second only to 2020, during the peak of the pandemic. Last October, Govenor Gavin Newsom proposed expanding California’s Film & Television Tax Credit programme to US$750 million (NZ$1.2 billion) annually, up from US$330 million (NZ$550 million).
Other US cities such as Atlanta, New York, Chicago and San Francisco have also used aggressive tax incentives to lure film and TV productions. Those programmes could take the form of cash grants, as in Texas, or tax credits, which Georgia and New Mexico offered.
“Other nations have been stealing the movie-making capabilities from the United States,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Sunday night after returning from a weekend in Florida. “If they’re not willing to make a movie inside the United States we should have a tariff on movies that come in.”
