Donald Trump on Sunday announced on his Truth Social platform a 100% tariff on all movies “produced in Foreign Lands”, saying the US film industry was dying a “very fast death” due to the incentives that other countries were offering to draw American film-makers.
In his post, he claimed to have authorised the commerce department and the US trade representative to immediately begin instituting such a tariff.
“This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,” Trump said in the Truth Social post. “It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!
“WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” Trump added.
The commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, posting on X said: “We’re on it.” Neither Lutnick nor Trump provided any details on the implementation. It was not immediately clear whether the move would target production companies, foreign or American, producing films overseas.
Film and television production in Los Angeles has fallen by nearly 40% over the last decade, according to FilmLA, a non-profit that tracks the region’s production. At the same time, governments around the world have offered more generous tax credits and cash rebates to lure productions, and capture a greater share of the $248bn that Ampere Analysis predicts will be spent globally in 2025 to produce content.
Politicians in Australia and New Zealand said on Monday they would advocate for their re
44 Comments
hunglee2
Trump always hated foreign movies – I remember him disparaging an Academy award winning movie purely because it was non-English language. Wonder what prompted this outburst – the success of Ne Zha 2 (china bad), or No Other Land (can't say Palestine)?
bananapub
It bodes very badly for everyone that the entire Republican Party is fine with having an entire federal government policy based on the random TV-driven whims of a bitter, broken and clearly ailing old man. Would they even try to stop him pushing the button?
pluc
Defund education then defund culture. Sounds exactly like America First/America Only. Next up is propaganda and filling Americans' minds with only what he wants you to know. He can flood the media as he's been flooding the government, all the pieces are in play.
Still nobody putting up a meaningful fight. Your window is closing.
xz18r
I live in Belgium. It feels like 95% of all films I ever hear about are American. Opponents counter MAGA with 'America was never great', but here they'll say 'Movies have never left America'?
seydor
it s impressive that , despite the US deciding to self-implode there is nobody willing to step in to compete for their place. It's as if the species has culturally peaked after its demographic peak. Europe is already in retirement and US seems to follow. Maybe we'll see African dynamism in a few decades
littlestymaar
Not only are the US the biggest film exporter in the world by far, with Hollywood being a pillar of American soft power, but you can't even apply “tariff” to movies as it is IP, not physical goods (on which tariffs apply). Sure you can imagine schemes to tax these anyway, but that's a huge can of worms to open for the US, are they are net exporters of everything IP related.
The EU has been struggling with base evasion and profit shifting (BEPS) from US companies because it was all about IP and they never dared to tax it in fear of upsetting the US government. But if the move comes from the US first, then they will follow suite with a lot of enthusiasm.
misja111
Was the USA's movie industry really under threat from abroad? In my local cinema here in Europe the great majority of popular movies is American ..
To me this move seems more a kind of cultural censorship. Similar to how many foreign movies can't be shown in Russia or China.
Ekaros
Great way to kill one of the product categories that you do not have trade deficit in…
jarym
Yes this man was democratically elected. There didn’t seem to be a particularly appealing set of options for the electorate.
As an outsider it seems a lot like groups pulling the political levers in the US only ensure candidates that can be ‘handled’ are put forward and those that can’t will be rooted out.
That’s why the choice was between braindead Biden vs deranged Trump. And when it was clear Biden wasn’t an option, a belated shift to try sell Kamala to the electorate.
I don’t think we’ll see strong presidential candidates – those clearly motivated to better the country and its citizens – in the near future either. The process now seems to suit the corporate and lobby groups who jostle to get their share of influence.
llm_nerd
Trump is likely saying this because the new Prime Minister of Canada is visiting tomorrow, and Canada has been fairly successful building a "Hollywood North" industry — lots of good filming locations, lots of talents that are indistinguishable from Americans, and tax credits on top.
This is 100% targeted at Canada, and trying to threaten destroying the Canadian film industry as another lever against Canada.
And it is laughably silly. Even in Canada alone, "Hollywood" nets far more than it ever spends here[1]. And of course worldwide media is something that the US has an enormous trade surplus. It's yet another harebrained bit of nonsense from the extremely smooth, simpleton mind of Trump and his greasy used-car salesman, carnival barker Howard Lutnick.
What Trump is really achieving in all of these declarations is making the rest of the world ask why do we accept Hollywood controlling the film or music industry, or Silicon Valley controlling the tech industry, or NYC the financial industry, etc? The end result of this is going to be massive decentralization and lowered importance of US industry leadership.
[1] Not to mention that the tax credits quite literally subsidizes the industry. And FWIW, I am wholly against tax credits for film productions, and much like paying a sports team to build a stadium, the accounting of the supposed benefit just doesn't make any sense.
incomingpain
Vancouver and toronto just had a heart attack. london UK and berlin probably far less impacted.
elbows up! Though i dont recommend continuing to antagonize trump even more because it's just triggering his ego and making him retaliate.
ujkhsjkdhf234
How do you tariff a movie?
mk89
I am so looking forward to the sequel of Rome ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_(TV_series) ), filmed in Georgia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome,_Georgia).
Or the new Lord of The Rings in the Grand Canyon… :)
hello_computer
[flagged]
jparishy
The filmmaking industry is constantly flying productions all over the world to avoid paying US labor. Waste of time, money, energy. And the saved money isn't given back to the people making the movie, the unions are still constantly fighting with the industry for basic asks.
I don't see a problem here, this is what tariffs are actually for. Broken clock is right twice a day yada yada
eta: one can not like the man and not think this is a bad idea. same as we don't need more dolls from china and it's weird for us to suddenly die on that hill. /shrug
steveBK123
Guy is mad at seeing too many subtitled films on NFLX
jansan
Europe should counter this with 500% tariffs. I (being German) really want to see a comeback of French cinema.
habosa
The MAGA people attacking Hollywood is such a big mistake. Yes I know the average celebrity doesn’t share their views, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hollywood projects American culture around the world in a way that the government could never do itself. Movies and music made here are so often cited as the reason why young people around the world idealize America and want to emulate us (buy our clothes, speak English, etc)
It’s the cultural equivalent of being the world’s reserve currency, it’s a massive free advantage in almost any situation. Stupid stupid stupid to threaten it.
trebligdivad
Soon he'll want Wallace & Gromit with American humour.
jaimebuelta
Not sure I follow.
Biggest real action movie last year was “Deadpool & Wolverine”, a Disney movie which was shot in UK and made a bit over 50% of its revenue overseas[1]. Its main stars were Canadian and Australian.
Does this mean that you’ll have to pay double to go watch it to cinemas in the US? Will that make Disney to focus on the international market?
[1] https://the-numbers.com/movie/Deadpool-and-Wolverine-(2024)
jpambrun
Not sure how you even tarif movies. I guess Netflix will receive bills based on viewership?
Anyway, as usual other countries will retaliate. American movies will become both more expensive to make and taxed abroad. Meanwhile, we can expect more people will turn to piracy to cope with rising inflation. I can't imagine any scenario where this isn't backfiring.
thrance
Is no one in this administration willing/able to deter the senile old man in charge from worsening the situation through new tariffs? I mean, don't get me wrong, this is music to my ears. Ever since I became an accelerationist last november, I cheer every time I see them pour oil on the fire.
croes
So movies will get more expensive and studios will do less.
Seems like Trump is the best ally for all those who want to reduce US influence in the world.
LatteLazy
A lot of films are produced in the uk, so this should mean no trade deal. It won’t of course but there you are…
aaron695
[dead]
rizs12
Any chance Trump could do this for software 'produced in foreign lands'?
d3nj4l
This makes no sense and people are giving it too much credit. What does “produced” mean? How do you “tariff” a movie? When is the movie crossing the border and who’s doing the valuation, customs check, and so on? There’s literally no substance to this and people are tying themselves into knots to make sense of this.
Buttons840
Do you want a European version of Netflix to be cheaper (in the US)? Because this is how you make foreign websites cheaper.
The Trump admin seems to be hastening the day that foreign website are more popular than US websites.
bilekas
Was something actually been written up or is this just some rally ranting ?
Because I would love to read the National Security justification for imposing a tariff on foreign movies.
In fact I'm sure some US companies are gonna be hit by this such as Netflix ? Disney ?
drooopy
We're really close to him issuing an executive order demanding that crops be watered with Gatorade, aren't we?
Der_Einzige
Given how much modern actors and related are freaking out about AI (despite holding "egalitarian" social views), I'm more than happy to see them destroyed. Very bad for US soft-power but great for helping gut hollywood faster.
Huge amounts of the top brass of hollywood are disgusting. Tom Cruise and the rest of Scientologies leadership should be in prison right now, and that's just one tiny example of the sea of shit found in hollywood.
perihelions
Does the First Amendment preclude the US from imposing prohibitive taxes on media?
It'd be clearly unconstitutional to ban them outright; so, where and how's that line drawn?
late edit: I just want to note the text of POTUS' announcement includes this: "It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!" The overtly expressed motive here is animus towards the content of the speech (not some content-neutral factor like trade balances).
intellectronica
Someone needs to tell Trump about BitTorrent.
alistairSH
Will this simply drive studios to produce with an even heavier eye towards the Chinese market?
There’s a nugget of truth to Hollywood moving production overseas, but I’m not convinced a massive tariff will have the effect Trump wants. Just like all his other economic fuckery.
victorbjorklund
I'm sure some in EU loves this. Many politicans in EU wants an excuse to prop up european cinema and this will give them the perfect excuse.
codingbot3000
As a side note, why does he only get ~21k likes on Truth Social for his post?
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1144521171432…
What is going on there? Why don't they fix the likes for him? :-D
the_duke
It's not just "evil greedy production companies want to save money", as some other comments imply.
There is EU regulation requiring that 30% of content available on streaming services for European customers are "European works". The definition is a bit complicated, but this is definitely a big part of why plenty of production has moved to Europe and the UK.
If this goes through it could bring some problems for Netflix et al. They can always artificially restrict the low-value content content from customers in EU countries though. As if the arcane licensing and availability landscape wasn't crazy enough for media…
(See the "Audiovisual Media Services Directive")
apexalpha
I don't get it? How many non-US movies does the US even import?
I can't think of any country that the US imports more movies from than it exports?
Even if you believe in tariffs what industry in America does this protect that needs protection?
Of is he gambling on recipritoral tarrifs to 'punish' the liberal Hollywood???? Sounds conspiracy-like but I legit can't think of any other reason this makes sense.
_3u10
How does one tariff a movie? It’s not like because it’s made in Australia that the blue rays are shipped through there? Not that anyone uses blue rays, like at what point does a movie go through customs
pcurve
For movies that have heavy CGI / blue screen reliance, it is almost irrelevant where it is actually shot.
Bluestrike2
I realize it's just another hair-brained scheme likely cooked up on the porcelain throne, but part of me is curious about how exactly they'd implement this train wreck.
Since Trump is relying on declarations of national emergencies for his tariffs, there's the question whether it's even legal given that Berman Amendments to the IEEPA[0] explicitly exempt "informational materials, including but not limited to, publications, *films*, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact disks, CD ROMs, artworks, and news wire feeds" from the President's authority under IEEPA.[1]
Even if we set that aside and ignore the likely legal challenges, how would you actually implement them? It's not like a movie or TV episode "produced" overseas gets transmitted into the US each time somebody wants to watch it. It's a digital file, and you're really only sending it once. So when do you tariff the damn thing, how do you manage to actually do it since there's not exactly a literal port of entry for the internet, and what exactly do you value it at? The system isn't built to track and tariff info being uploaded to random servers, and making it work would require all sorts of new law.
Plus, what's the legal definition of "production" he wants to use? What constitutes foreign production? Can some of the producing just be done remotely? What if raw footage is uploaded instead and then it's edited here? Or a nearly finished copy that just needs something minor done to be considered ready? Hollywood accountants are in a league of their own. Put them in a room with lawyers and accountants whose focus is the creative eccentricities of tariff engineering–hello, chicken tax people[0]–and I shudder to imagine what they'd get up to.
We're only a few months in at this point, and I feel like I'm losing my mind.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Econom…
1. https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/2333…
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax
kjksf
Maybe people should first understand the context of this.
Apparently, here's the data:
California is losing its grip on the film industry as Canada, the UK, and Australia outspend the U.S. on production subsidies.
LA’s soundstage occupancy dropped to 90% pre-strikes, while Warner Brothers and Netflix ramp up overseas filming.
Even a $3.75 billion tax credit boost might not be enough to keep Hollywood on top.
Meanwhile, Vancouver is adding 20 new soundstages, and UK productions hit a record $7 billion.
Here's Ben Affleck talking about this: https://nypost.com/2025/04/18/entertainment/ben-affleck-crit…, https://x.com/MarioNawfal/status/1913449981643456612
Here's Adam Scott and Rob Lowe talking about it: https://x.com/medx0/status/1919178518031896903
Basically it seems that movie production and jobs created by it moved outside of US in a massive way.
Hence the leftist tarrifs meant to reverse that and bring movie production back in US
zelias
The rumor I heard is that Trump watched _Escape From Alcatraz_ over the weekend, which resulted in this decree in addition to the "we are reopening Alcatraz" decree
SpacePortKnight
Next up, all software produced in foreign lands would be subject to tariffs.