President Donald Trump opened a new salvo in his tariff war today as he targeted films made outside the US – including those in Britain – with a 100 per cent levy.
Mr Trump said he has authorised the Department of Commerce and the Office of the US Trade Representative to impose the 100 per cent tariff ‘on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands’.
‘The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,’ he wrote last night on his Truth Social platform, complaining that other countries ‘are offering all sorts of incentives to draw’ filmmakers and studios away from the US.
‘This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!’
It was not immediately clear how any such tariff on international productions could be implemented. It is common for both large and smaller films to include production in both the US and other countries.
Big-budget movies like the upcoming Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, for instance, are shot around the world. The production starring Tom Cruise was filmed in Britain, Norway, South Africa , and Malta.
Incentive programmes for years have influenced where movies are shot, increasingly driving film production out of California and to other states and countries with favourable tax incentives, like Canada and the UK.
Yet tariffs are designed to lead consumers toward American products, and American-produced movies overwhelmingly dominate the domestic marketplace.
China has ramped up its domestic movie production, culminating in the animated blockbuster Ne Zha 2 grossing more than $2billion (£1.5billion) this year
But even then, its sales came almost entirely from mainland China. In North America, it earned just $20.9million (£15.7million).
After the announcement, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on X: ‘We’re on it.’
Neither Mr Lutnick nor Mr 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 cinemas, or if they would be calculated based on production costs or box office revenue.
There was also no mention in Mr Trump’s post of whether television shows, an increasingly popular and profitable sector of production for the screen, would be affected.
Hollywood executives were trying to sort out details today. The Motion Picture Association, which represents the major studios, had no immediate comment.
has also contacted the UK’s Department for Culture, Media & Sport and industry body the British Film Institute for comment.
According to the MPA, the American movies produced $22.6billion (£17billion) in exports and $15.3billion (£11.5billion) in trade surplus in 2023.
Mr Trump has made good on the ‘tariff man’ label he gave himself years ago, slapping new taxes on goods made in countries around the globe.
That includes a 145 per cent tariff on Chinese goods and a 10 per cent baseline tariff on goods from other countries, with even higher levies threatened.
By unilaterally imposing tariffs, he has exerted extraordinary influence over the flow of commerce, creating political risks and pulling the market in different directions.
There are tariffs on autos, steel and aluminium, with more imports, including pharmaceutical drugs, set to be subject to new tariffs in the weeks ahead.
Mr Trump has long voiced concern about movie production moving overseas.
Shortly before he took office, he announced that he had tapped actors Mel Gibson, Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone to serve as ‘special ambassadors’ to Hollywood to bring it ‘BACK-BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!’
US film and television production has been hampered in recent years, with setbacks from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Hollywood guild strikes of 2023 and the recent wildfires in the Los Angeles area.
The 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 neighbourhoods.
Overall production in the US was down 26 per cent last year compared with 2021, according to data from ProdPro, which tracks production.
The group’s annual survey of executives, which asked about preferred filming locations, found no location in the US made the top five, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Toronto, the UK, Vancouver, Central Europe and came out on top, with California placing sixth, Georgia seventh, New Jersey eighth and New York ninth.
The problem is especially acute in California. In the greater Los Angeles area, production last year was down 5.6 per cent from 2023 according to FilmLA, second only to 2020, during the peak of the pandemic.
Last October, governor Gavin Newsom proposed expanding California’s Film & Television Tax Credit programme to $750million (£564million) annually, up from $330 million (£248million).
Other US cities like Atlanta, New York, Chicago and San Francisco have also used aggressive tax incentives to lure film and TV productions using cash grants, as in Texas, or tax credits, which Georgia and New Mexico offer.
‘Other nations have been stealing the movie-making capabilities from the United States,’ Mr Trump told reporters at the White House last night after returning from a weekend in Florida.
‘If they’re not willing to make a movie inside the United States, we should have a tariff on movies that come in.’
Today, leaders in and New Zealand responded to Mr Trump’s tariff announcement by saying they would advocate for their local industries.
Some Marvel superhero movies have been filmed in , while New Zealand was the backdrop for ‘The Lord of the Rings’ films.
Former senior Commerce official William Reinsch, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said retaliation against Mr 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.
Mr Trump and the Republicans have traditionally received scant support from the entertainment industry, and a huge number of Hollywood stars from Taylor Swift to George Clooney backed Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.
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