On Sunday May 4, United States President Donald Trump announced he would be ordering a 100% tariff on movies produced outside the country, but the details are leaving everyone confused.
He posted about it on Truth Social
Taking to his social media app, Trump announced the tariff on foreign-made movies, saying that the American movie industry was dying a ‘very fast death’.
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“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote.
Trump blamed other nations
The president’s rationale on why the American movie industry was ‘dying’ in his view was that other nations were offering incentives to lure filmmakers to produce movies in their countries.
The president called in a threat
On Truth Social, Trump said, “Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States.”
He added, “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda.”
He said he’s ordering the process immediately
According to Reuters, Trump said he would be authorizing the relevant government agencies, like the Department of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative, to begin the process of imposing the 100% tariff right away.
It would be on all movies produced abroad and then sent to air to be available in the United States.
Trump believes Hollywood is being ‘devastated’
In his post, Trump said that “Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated,” as he seemed to worry about the movie industry in the US ‘dying’.
He ended his post with “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick responded to him
Over on X, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick responded to Trump’s post, saying, “We’re on it.”
But neither the president nor Lutnick have really explained how the tariffs would be implemented.
But what parts of the industry will be affected?
While the tariff is on all foreign-made movies, it’s unclear exactly how that will be implemented.
For example, it’s unclear whether this would apply to movies on streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ as well as movies shown in theaters, or if they would just be calculated based on production costs or box office revenues.
Many American companies produce movies abroad
This comes as many American production companies make movies abroad, with movies like Deadpool & Wolverine, Wicked, and Gladiator II, for example, having been filmed outside the US.
Questions are also raised for production companies like Marvel, which has recently moved its primary filming locations outside of the US, according to South China Morning Post.
We’re unsure how international productions would be affected
It’s also unclear how the tariff would affect international productions, such as the upcoming movie Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, which was filmed in multiple locations both inside and outside the US.
The US is a major movie production hub
The US movie industry has faced a lot of drawbacks in the recent years, with the COVID-19 pandemic slowing down production, as well as the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strikes and the California wildfires earlier this year.
Despite all this, the US remains a major movie production hub globally, according to ProdPro.
The movie industry research firm’s most recent annual report shows that the US saw $14.54 billion of production spending last year. Although, this number is down by 26% since 2022.