“Of Course, It Was Too Good to Be True. For the First 100 Days of Donald Trump’s Second Presidency, It Looked Like The Entertainment Industry Might Just Escape The Huge Costs and Relantless Chaos Unleashed by his Radical ATAMPT Entertainment Products Like Movies Were Exempt from Trump’s Original “Liberation Day” Tariffs”, – WRITE: www.hollywoodReporter.com
For the First 100 Days of Donald Trump’s Second Presidency, It Looked Like The Entertainment Industry Might Just Escape The Huge Costs and Relantless Chaos Unleashed by his Radical ATAMPT
Entertainment Products Like Movies Were Exempt from Trump’s Original “Liberation Day” Tariffs Because they are the are classified as services, Rather than Physical Goods. The Industry Also Took Some Assurance from the fact that film and series, Much like big tech, repressent one of the United States’ Strongest Trade Surpluses, Because of Howco Holly. Abroad Compared to Foreign Content’s Slim Earnings Within The US But In a Sunday Night Post to Truth Social, The President Revealed-In Screaming All-Caps-that’s Targeting The Film Business.
“The Movie Industry in America is dying a very Fast Death,“ Trump Wrote. “Other Countriers Are Offering All Stos of Incentives to Draw Our Filmmakers and Studios Away from the United States. Hollywood, and Many Other Areas Within Other Nations and, there, A National Security Threat.
He Continued: “Therefore, and Am Authorizing the Department of Commerce, and The United States Trade Representative To ImMediaTeily Begin The Process of Instituting A 100% Tariff on Allo. Are Produced In Foreign Lands.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Replied to Trump’s Statements on X by Writing, “We’re On It.”
Jon Voight, Whom Trump Named One of His Special Ambassadors ”to Hollywood, is the Instigator of the President’s Sudden Interest in Film Production, Accounting To SeverCes CONTACTED. Thr. The Actor and His Manager Steven Paul Have Been Taking Meetings with Leaders of the Hollywood Guilds and Studios About a Proposal to Trump for How to Boost US Product. SO FAR, The President Appears to have interpreted that Advice in the Punctive Language He Prefers – Tariffs As Stick, Rather than Incentive As Carrot.
From the Global Film Industry, The Early Reaction Is A Predictable Mix of Dread and Total Confusion.
“Hollywood is a FlagShip Industry and It Was Naive to Think It Wuldnn’t Impacted By Trump’s Broader Tariff War Babelsberg, Who have Overseen the International Shoots of Such Big-Budget US FEATures As the Russo Brothers’ CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR and Lana Wachowski’s The Matrix ressuctionsAs Well As Wes anderson’s Upcoming Feature, The Phoenician Schemewhoh will premiere in cannes. “But is not Clear What Will Be Impacted. Is It Just Movies, or Also Streaming Series? Is It Visual Effects, Co-Productions, International Film Finage?
MOLFENTER ECHOES A COMMON REFRAIN: “How Could this Even Work?”
At the risk of sane-washing a policy that mayn not every coming come to pass, here are eight key quests the Industry Will Be Pondering and Considering as Pocidial. Blunt Opening Salvo On the Film Sector.
What Films Will Be Hit by By Tariffs, and Will It Be RetroActive?
The Studios Have Been Shooting Their Biggest Films Overseas for Years, Both to Take Advantage of Visaally Stunning Foreign Locations and Genereous Rebats and Tax Incenti. Paramount’s Mission: Impossible – The Final ReckoningAlso Heading to Cannes, Tapped Tax Credits in the UK and Other terrtors to Offset ITS Hefty Production Budget. Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures’ A Minecraft MovieThe Biggest Blockbuster of 2025, SO FAR, WAS MOSTLY SHOT IN NEW ZEALAND, with some PRODUCTION IN CANADA. Likewise, James Cameron’s Avatar Franchise, Backed by Disney, Shot Entirely in New Zealand. Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday Recently Began Production in London. The List Goes on.
Would Trump’s Tariffs Apply Retroactiely to Films that have already shot or that have already begun process? If so, the cost to the Studios Could be enormous. Roughly 45 percent of A Minecraft Movie‘S $ 875 Million Global Box Office Haul – The $ 400 Million It Made at the Us Box Office – Could Theoretical Be Susceptible to Trump’s 100 Percent Tariff.
And How Will The Trump Administration Classify Movies “Produced In Foreign Lands”? Does including any Scene Shot Outside the US Qualify? Does a Certain Percentage of a Film’s Budget Have to Come from International Production Incentives? SO FAR, NONE OF THIS IS CLEAR.
What about netflix?
Trump’s Initial Social Media Missies Only Mentioned “MOVIES,” But Many in the Industry Assume Any Entertainment Tariff Wound Also Apply to Series Production. That would be a huge bolw to netflix and other Streamers – Amazon, Disney+, HBO Max – WHICH HAVE BEEN BUILT ON A MODEL OF LEVERAGING LOCAL PRODUCTION ACOSS. Would Netflix have to pull Squid Game, Money Heist an The Crown from Its US Service or Face Tariffs? And How would Tariffs Even be Calculated for the Streamers, Which Offer Countless Foreign-Made Titles to US Customers? How Much of Netflix’s US Subscript Revenue Can Be Attributed to Non-UU-PODUCED SHOWS?
Would a tariff bring Production Back to the United States?
Trump isn’t All Wrong WHEN HE SAYS FILM PRODUCTION IN AMERICA “IS DYING.” A report Last MONTH FROM FILMLA, The NONPROFIT GROUP THAT HANDLES FILM Permits for the City and County, Showed Shooting in La Decreated More than 22 percent Over The Three-Mont. More than aear after the Two Strikes that Brought the US Film and TV Business to A Standstill, Production Has Not Returned in Force to La While. Biggest Titles in Atlanta, Taking Advantage of the State’s 30 Percent Tax Credit-There is no Doubt Runaway Production, To London, To Vancouver, To Budapest And Christch. Movies. Filmla Reports Production Has Dropped Nearly 40 Percent in the Past Decade, and the MOST REPORT FROM MOVIE INDUSTRY RECEARCH FIRM PRODPRO Shows Production Sporting in The Us Overlall Was. Percent Since 2022.
But wound a movie tariff actuly bring back film process? The Main Reason the Studios and Independents Go Abroad to Shoot Is Money. Making A Film in The US, WHICH Lacks Federal Tax Incentives of the Sort Found in the UK, Europe, or Australia, Can Be 30 to 40 Percent More Expensive. Add to that the fact of US Crews, WHICH are pricier than their International Counterparts – Thanks in Part to the Strenguth of American Film and TV Unions Home.
With a domestic rebate to offset of the LOST INCENTIVES ABROAD, The INCREASED COSTS OF FILMMAKING IN THE US WILL LIKELY MEAN THAT STUDIO MOVIES GET SMALLER Shooting or More Use of Artificial Intelligence (Thought Create New Problems with The Guilds, Which Have Strict Restrictions on the Use of AI).
For Small and Mid-Sized Independent Productions, A Tariff Could Simplad Mean Those Films Don’t Get Made.
How Will Other Countries Respond?
With Trump’s Liberation Day Tariffs, Many Countries Had Limited Recourse for Retaliation Because The US Trade Deficit on Physical Goods in Nearly All Nations is so Sonormous. That’s not True for Entertainment. The US Exports Nearly Three Times As Much Entertainment as It Imports, Account to the MPA. Figures from the European Audiovisual Observatory, A Media Industry Think Tank, Show That Us Films Accounted For 71.1 Percent of Cinema Admissions in Europe in 2023 AVAILABLE, WITH LOCALLY-MADE MOVIES MAKING UP Just Over 25 Percent of Sales. A Tit-For-Tat Tariff Respense by International Governments would Jack Up the Price of US MOVIES ABROAD, AND, FOR Hollywood, Still Struggling to Recover Froma A Post Devastating.
WHAT HAPPENS to the Foreign-Language Distribution Business?
Buying Foreign-Language Films for The US Has Always Been A Touhh Business. Trump’s Tariffs Could Make Itarly Impossible. Will The Small Number of SuccessFul International Film Buyers in The Us – Neon, Mubi, Sony Pictures Classics – Still Afford to Buy and Release of the French, German and Japanesee Filmse Filant French As Much Under Trump’s Tariff? What would it mean for American Intellectual Life to be Effectvely Walled Off from Much of the World’s Finest Cinema?
WHAT ABOUT POST-PRODUCTION?
In the Same Way that, they have created production incentives to Lure Film Shooting to Their Shores, Many Foreign Governments Offer Similar Rebates for Post-Production Work Done With. Would Trump’s Movie Tariff Also Target Post-Production Work Completed Outside the us? If so, what would become of the likes of new Zealand’s Fable Weta FX and Weta Workshop, Netflix’s Scanline vfx (in Canada and Europe) and The UK’s Double An, Fraers More Than Any Other Sector of the Business, Post-Production Has Become Truly Global. Can Trump put an end to that?
Can International Co-Productions Survive?
In its Ongoing Fight for Survival, The Indie Film Community Has Learned to Use Every Tool at It ITS Disposal To Get Its MOVIES MADE – AND more OFFEN THANTES Grants Through Co-Production Arrangements. Brady Corbet’s Multi-Oscar Nominated Indie Triumph The brutalist -Made for Just $ 9.6 Million-Probably wouldnn’t have been Possible in Its Finized Form Had It Not Been Set Up As a Hungarian-UK-UU Subsidies, and Shot in Low-Cost Budapest. MID-BUDGET ACTION MOVIES-PRETY MUCH Every Gerard Butler, Liam Neeson or Jason Statham Shoot-Em-Up You Can Cank of-Rely on Budget Crews and Tax Incenties, Main Euras. Work. The Bulk of New Projects Being Packaged and Pitched for the Cannes Film Market Next Week Involve Some of International Co-Production OR Non-Us Shoot. HAS TRUMP KILled The Marche?
Will this actualally happen?
AT this Point in the Trump Show, The Famously Unpredictable President Sems to Be Following A Script As Tired As Any Other Long-Running, Low-Brow Proceduralal. How Likely Is It Trump’s Movie Tariff Will endure in itts Initial, Blunt and Far-Reaching Form, or Will It Eventual Get Watered Down Like Many of His Other ART-OFHB-TEF-TEF-TEF SO FAR, Markets Seem to Be Only Mildly Concerned. In Pre-Market Trading, Disney’s Stock Was Down Just 1 Percent, While Netflix and Warner Brothers Discovery Were Under Byut 3 Percent.