ANOTHER PHONEY NATIONAL EMERGENCY
The president declared that "the Movie Industry in America is DYING" in a post to his Truth Social platform on May 4.
Ryan Coleman
Sun, May 4, 2025
Entertainment Weekly
President Donald Trump has announced a 100 percent tariff on all films produced outside of the United States.
"The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death," Trump wrote in a post shared to his Truth Social platform on Sunday. "Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. 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 continued. "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!"
Trump warned that he planned to impose steep tariffs on a variety of goods and products in his inaugural address, declaring in the Jan. 20 speech, "Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens."
In the months since, the president has announced harsh tariffs on everything from an Antarctic island inhabited only by penguins to European wine, beer, and liquor, which he threatened a 200 percent tariff against in March.
The film industry had so far been spared, but the former host of The Apprentice has taken several actions related to the entertainment industry since his election in November.
Karwai Tang/WireImage; David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty; Amy Sussman/WireImageMel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight
Shortly before his inauguration in January, Trump announced that he would appoint Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight as Special Ambassadors to "a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California."
"They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK — BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!," he wrote on Truth Social.
In April, Trump's Justice Department, under the direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi, restored Gibson's gun rights after he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge stemming from a domestic violence incident in 2011. That same month, Trump bragged about a White House visit from actor Vince Vaughn via a post from several official White House social media accounts that pictured Trump and the Wedding Crashers star together with the caption, "White House Crashers."
Andrea Shalal and Tim Reid
Sun, May 4, 2025
REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: The iconic Hollywood Sign is pictured in Los Angeles
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday announced a 100% tariff on movies produced outside the country, saying the American movie industry was dying a "very fast death" due to the incentives that other countries were offering to lure filmmakers.
"This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda," Trump said on Truth Social.
Trump said he was authorizing the relevant government agencies, such as the Department of Commerce, to immediately begin the process of imposing a 100% tariff on all films produced abroad that are then sent into the United States.
He added: "WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!"
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on X: "We're on it."
Neither Lutnick nor Trump provided any details on how the tariffs would be implemented.
It was unclear if the tariffs would apply to movies on streaming services as well as those shown in theaters, or if they would be calculated based on production costs or box office revenue. Hollywood executives were trying to sort out details on Sunday night. The Motion Picture Association, which represents the major studios, had no immediate comment.
In January, Trump appointed Hollywood veterans Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson to bring Hollywood back "bigger, better and stronger than ever before."
Movie and TV production has been exiting Hollywood for years, heading to locations with tax incentives that make filming cheaper.
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NY Post
Governments around the world have increased credits and cash rebates to attract productions and capture a greater share of the $248 billion that Ampere Analysis predicts will be spent globally in 2025 to produce content.
All major media companies, including Walt Disney, Netflix and Universal Pictures, film overseas in countries such as Canada and Britain.
On Monday, leaders in Australia and New Zealand responded to Trump's tariff announcement by saying they would advocate for their local industries. Some Marvel superhero movies have been filmed in Australia, while New Zealand was the backdrop for "The Lord of the Rings" films.
'LOT MORE TO LOSE THAN TO GAIN'
In 2023, about half of the spending by U.S. producers on movie and TV projects with budgets of more than $40 million went outside the U.S., according to research firm ProdPro.
Film and television production has fallen by nearly 40% over the last decade in Hollywood's home city of Los Angeles, according to FilmLA, a non-profit that tracks the region's production.
The January wildfires accelerated concerns that producers may look outside Los Angeles, and that camera operators, costume designers, sound technicians and other behind-the-scenes workers may move out of town rather than try to rebuild in their neighborhoods.
A ProdPro survey of executives found California was the sixth most preferred place to film in the next two years, behind Toronto, Britain, Vancouver, Central Europe and Australia.
Hollywood producers and labor unions have been urging Governor Gavin Newsom to boost the state's tax incentives to better compete with other locations.
Trump's proposed movie tariff follows a series of trade conflicts initiated by his administration, which have roiled markets and led to fears of a U.S. recession.
Former senior Commerce official William Reinsch, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said retaliation against Trump's film tariffs would be devastating.
"The retaliation will kill our industry. We have a lot more to lose than to gain," he said, adding it would be difficult to make a national security or national emergency case for movies.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Jasper Ward and Tim Reid, additional reporting by Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Humeyra Pamuk, Diane Craft and Himani Sarkar)
Trump Has “No Authority” To Impose 100% Movie Tariffs, Gavin Newsom Says; Studios Scrambling To Find Out What POTUS Wants
Dominic Patten
Sun, May 4, 2025
EXCLUSIVE: Typical of Donald Trump, the details of POTUS’ just announced bombshell 100% tariffs on movies made outside America are vague. Yet, what is already very clear, as studios and streamers try to figure out next steps, is that the Governor of California won’t be playing a supporting role.
In fact, as Gavin Newsom pushes for his plan to more than doubling of the state’s film and TV tax incentives to $750 million annually, Trump’s newest tariff missive sets up a showdown between the Governor and the President over who truly wants to save the home of Hollywood.
Contacted by Deadline, Newsom’s office had no comment tonight on Trump’s social media declaration “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.” Even with Newsom slagged as a “grossly incompetent governor” that let Hollywood be “stolen” later Sunday by Trump on the South Lawn of the White House, the Governor’s team are taking a wait and see approach until more specifics are made available of the president’s desire for “MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”
However, as Trump claimed runaway production “is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,” Governor Newsom’s office were not shy about advocating the rule of the actual law.
“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,” Newsom senior advisor for communications Bob Salladay told Deadline this evening of the president’s undefined threat against overseas productions and their incentives. Perhaps setting the stage for another lawsuit from the Golden State against the MAGA administration and its chaos inducing tariffs, the initial reaction from the Governor’s team is sure take more solid form as more becomes known about what Trump really is up to and wants to see done.
It is worth noting the movie tariff firestorm from the low polling Trump came the same night he also exclaimed that he wanted to “rebuild and open” Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary to house “Serial Offenders who spread filth, bloodshed, and mayhem on our streets.”
Accordingly, this new tariff policy seems to be connected somewhat to conversations Jon Voight, one of Trump’s trio of special ambassadors” to Hollywood, has been having with guilds and studio/streamer executives in recent weeks. At the same time, industry sources also believe seems it is also a reaction to a China Film Administration unveiled decision in April to “moderately reduce the number of American films imported” as part of a pushback against the 145% tariffs Trump imposed on the PRC.
Regardless, how any tariffs on non-domestic produced film would play out is unknown at this early stage. Would consumers pay the results as a de facto tax with increased ticket prices and streaming subscriptions? Would budgets be the baseline of any evaluation? One theory circulating in DC and LA circles tonight is that any tariffs would be directly on any financial incentives films and possibly shows received from the likes of Canadian provinces and the Hollywood North of Vancouver, the UK, Australia, Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, Germany, Mexico and others.
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Tonight, studio in-house counsel and top tier outside firms are said to be scrambling to find out what Trump really wants and what it will cost them,” I’m told. “He always wants a deal, a win, we have to hit the right note Monday,” an exec who has been working the phones, texts and DMs said to me. “The hope is this passes and eventually becomes a non-starter.”
With studios and streamers officially pushing any request for comment over to the MPA, the industry lobbying group has said nothing publicly so far. Trump has his first sit-down with Canada’s newly elected Prime Minster Mark Carney set for May 6 at the White House with the foreign movie tariffs near certain to be on the agenda now.
One other certainty is that if Trump’s movie tariffs are real, it will prove another blow to an already greatly weakened industry, especially here in the Southern California.
The home of Hollywood only recently has seen some degree of recovery from the severe downturns of the pandemic and the shift to in-home viewing via streaming, with Netflix, Max, and to some extent Disney, having heavy international inventories. Add to that, even as the big increase in the California Film Commission administered tax credits moves through the state legislature, with 2023’s strikes, devastating wildfires and high costs battering LA, there has been a dramatic double digit drop in production in and around the City of Angels over the past six years. A harsh drop in a now belt tightening economy that has left scores of below-the-line workers unemployed month after month, with increasing numbers leaving the state and/or the industry all together.
As one insider put it Sunday of Trump’s new tariffs threats: “I didn’t have destroy the entire film industry worldwide on my bingo card this year.”
To that, Trump has invoked the 1977 created legislation repeatedly over the last three months in his sprawling and erratic tariffs moves since taking office again Still, the IEEPA is actually quite precise in the need for an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to be identified for a national emergency to be called. Additionally, to Newsom’s office’s point, with all the sanctions power the IEEPA affords a POTUS, the term “tariffs” are not among them. With that, there is little the GOP dominated Congress can or would do to reign Trump in on this abuse of the Act without a veto proof bill shutting down his initiative.
Which, as a fuller sense of what Trump actually means by a 100% tariff on movies produced in other nations takes shape and will it include television, looks like this will be heading for the courts. Before then it will be the stock market that offers the first reaction in the morning – and that could set a very bleak stage
Trump announces plans for 100% tariffs on all foreign movies
Nnamdi Egwuonwu
NBC
Sun, May 4, 2025
President Donald Trump announced plans Sunday to implement a 100% tariff on movies made in other countries that are imported to the United States, decrying other nations for offering financial incentives meant to “draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States.”
"Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat," Trump wrote on Truth Social, referring to foreign films as "messaging and propaganda."
"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," he continued.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Sunday that "other nations have been stealing the movies, the moviemaking capabilities from the United States," blaming California Gov. Newsom for the decline in film production in Hollywood specifically over the last several years.
A spokesman for Newsom did not respond to a request for comment Sunday night.
"If they're not willing to make a movie inside the United States, we should have a tariff when movies come in," Trump said. "I can tell you one thing, moviemakers love it."
The American film industry has suffered a series of economic blows in recent years, including the Hollywood labor strikes and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Physical production has declined in California amid budget cuts and more generous tax incentives elsewhere. FilmLA, a nonprofit organization that coordinates film permits and supports on-location production in the Los Angeles region, reported lower-than-average soundstage occupancy in recent years. The report notes that competing jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and Ontario, Canada, have more than doubled their stage production capacity over the last years, alongside other U.S. states, such as New York and Georgia.
However, while overall production was down in Los Angeles, the report found that the production of feature films specifically was up 18.8% last year, though the category is still well below its five-year average.
"Unfortunately for all involved, fewer film, television and commercial projects in production makes it harder to fill studio vacancies," the report read.
Trump appointed actors Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone as special ambassadors to Hollywood in January, calling the industry a “great but very troubled place." Their job, Trump said at the time, was to bring business back to Hollywood, which he said "has lost much business over the last four years to foreign countries."
Last month, Voight’s manager, Steven Paul, confirmed to NBC News that he and Voight intended to present Trump with a suite of ideas to ramp up American film and television production. It is unclear whether that meeting has occurred.
The Motion Picture Association, a trade organization that represents Hollywood’s leading studios, declined to comment. In a recent economic report based on U.S. government data, the MPA found that Hollywood has a positive trade balance in all the world’s major markets.
NBC News did not immediately receive responses to requests for comment from Paul; Cinema United, a trade group that represents movie theaters; and several distributors that release foreign-made films, including Netflix.
China announced new tariffs on Hollywood films imported into the country about a month ago, though Reuters reports the move was unlikely to have a significant financial impact on Hollywood given steadily declining box office returns from China.
Sun, May 4, 2025
President Donald Trump announced plans Sunday to implement a 100% tariff on movies made in other countries that are imported to the United States, decrying other nations for offering financial incentives meant to “draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States.”
"Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat," Trump wrote on Truth Social, referring to foreign films as "messaging and propaganda."
"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," he continued.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Sunday that "other nations have been stealing the movies, the moviemaking capabilities from the United States," blaming California Gov. Newsom for the decline in film production in Hollywood specifically over the last several years.
A spokesman for Newsom did not respond to a request for comment Sunday night.
"If they're not willing to make a movie inside the United States, we should have a tariff when movies come in," Trump said. "I can tell you one thing, moviemakers love it."
The American film industry has suffered a series of economic blows in recent years, including the Hollywood labor strikes and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Physical production has declined in California amid budget cuts and more generous tax incentives elsewhere. FilmLA, a nonprofit organization that coordinates film permits and supports on-location production in the Los Angeles region, reported lower-than-average soundstage occupancy in recent years. The report notes that competing jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and Ontario, Canada, have more than doubled their stage production capacity over the last years, alongside other U.S. states, such as New York and Georgia.
However, while overall production was down in Los Angeles, the report found that the production of feature films specifically was up 18.8% last year, though the category is still well below its five-year average.
"Unfortunately for all involved, fewer film, television and commercial projects in production makes it harder to fill studio vacancies," the report read.
Trump appointed actors Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone as special ambassadors to Hollywood in January, calling the industry a “great but very troubled place." Their job, Trump said at the time, was to bring business back to Hollywood, which he said "has lost much business over the last four years to foreign countries."
Last month, Voight’s manager, Steven Paul, confirmed to NBC News that he and Voight intended to present Trump with a suite of ideas to ramp up American film and television production. It is unclear whether that meeting has occurred.
The Motion Picture Association, a trade organization that represents Hollywood’s leading studios, declined to comment. In a recent economic report based on U.S. government data, the MPA found that Hollywood has a positive trade balance in all the world’s major markets.
NBC News did not immediately receive responses to requests for comment from Paul; Cinema United, a trade group that represents movie theaters; and several distributors that release foreign-made films, including Netflix.
China announced new tariffs on Hollywood films imported into the country about a month ago, though Reuters reports the move was unlikely to have a significant financial impact on Hollywood given steadily declining box office returns from China.
Trump Plans to Impose 100% Tariff on All Movies Produced Outside of the U.S.
Harrison Richlin
Sun, May 4, 2025
IndieWire
Utilizing the resources of the Department of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative, Donald Trump has announced his intention to seek a 100% tariff on all films brought to America from another country. This includes films made by American companies like Netflix overseas in areas with better tax incentives, such as the U.K. and South Africa.
Writing on Truth Social, Trump said, “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. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated.”
Trump went on to claim that production moving overseas was part of a “concerted effort” by foreign countries to undermine American business, calling it “a national security threat.”
“It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!” Trump wrote. “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!”
Hollywood has been on the President’s hit list from the very start of his second administration. One of his first actions in office was to name Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight as “special ambassadors” to help fix an ailing Hollywood. Though not much has been heard from Gibson or Stallone on this effort, Voight has been making the rounds with different union reps and studio executives (as per Deadline). Many were hopeful this might lead to a possible federal tax incentive for production throughout the U.S., but as it’s become Trump’s new favorite toy, it seems a tariff is what we’ll get.
It’s unclear whether this tariff will apply to films alone or also include other media such as television, music videos, or commercials, but if so, it may end up doing more damage than good. The stated goal is to incentivize bringing production back to the States and in particular, Hollywood — but this doesn’t actually reduce the cost of production in the way federal U.S. Tax incentives would. This just makes production outside the U.S. more expensive. The net result may be that the studios would just reduce production across the board.
As far as tax incentives, in October 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom put forth a proposal to increase the state’s tax program to $750 million, over twice as much as it’s doling out currently. Others have offered further increases, suggesting no cap be placed on this figure. Voting for this initiative will take place this summer.
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