Donald Trump decrees "100% Tariff" on all "foreign" films

Surely this can’t have been the plan Jon Voight came up with, right? On Sunday, President Donald Trump announced a new round of tariffs—this time, specifically on movies. Posting to Truth Social (because of course), he wrote, “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands. WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”

Obviously, there’s a lot unclear about this particular declaration, including whether he sincerely thinks he’s helping the entertainment industry or whether it’s actually meant to hurt Hollywood, an enclave traditionally unfriendly to Trump. The president’s comment to CSPAN, in which he took shots at Democratic governor Gavin Newsom, would suggest he’s at least partially motivated by the latter. “What they’ve done is other nations have been stealing the movies, the moviemaking capabilities from the United States. I’ve done some very strong research over the past week, and we’re making very few movies now. Hollywood is being destroyed,” he said (via The Hollywood Reporter). “Now, you have a… grossly incompetent governor that allowed that to happen, so I’m not just blaming other nations, but other nations have stolen our movie industry. If they’re not willing to make a movie inside the United States, then we should have a tariff on movies that come in. And not only that, governments are actually giving big money. They’re supporting them financially. That’s sort of a threat to our country in a sense.” (“Looks like it’s distraction day again in Washington, D.C.,” Newsom responded.)

Of course, Trump also has a vindictive desire to continue and escalate his trade wars, no matter the cost. This outrageous demand may well have been prompted by China’s countermeasures to his tariffs, which included a limit on importing Hollywood films. But China wouldn’t be the only market potentially impacted by this decision; many American films are made in Canada, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere around the world where productions can receive tax incentives or other funding assistance (The Guardian reports that Universal Studios received £89m from U.K. taxpayers to film Jurassic World: Rebirth in England, for instance). 

At this point, we don’t know if this tariff proposal is at all realistic, let alone what it would actually do. Would the burden be on moviegoers (increased ticket prices) or studios? Would it affect streaming or just the box office? Would American studio movies made abroad (the Wicked movies, the Mission: Impossible franchise, and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, to name a few recent examples) be impacted, or just international films from foreign studios? (The White House told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday morning that “no final decisions” have been made so far.) However it’s implemented, this “plan” (such as it is) is sure to hurt everyone and help no one. (“I didn’t have destroy the entire film industry worldwide on my bingo card this year,” one Deadline insider lamented.) And in fairness, Hollywood could use the help. There is ongoing conversation in this industry about boosting American production, and particularly production in Los Angeles. But the agreed upon wisdom—including, reportedly, from Trump’s “special ambassador” Jon Voight—is that there needs to be better incentives to make movies in the U.S., not de-incentivizing movies made elsewhere.

We can still cross our fingers that this won’t be implemented at all. “We believe he has no authority to impose tariffs under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, since tariffs are not listed as a remedy under that law,” Governor Newsom’s senior advisor for communications Bob Salladay told Deadline. Regardless, the big studios—which have scrambled to appease many of Trump’s whims this year—are reportedly treading carefully to respond. “He always wants a deal, a win, we have to hit the right note Monday,” an exec shared with Deadline. “The hope is this passes and eventually becomes a non-starter.”

This story has been updated with a statement from The White House.