Donald Trump Says He’s Pursuing 100% Tariffs On Movies Produced Outside U.S., Calling Runaway Production “A National Security Threat”

04 May 2025, 23:28 · Yahoo News

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UPDATED with additional comments from Trump: Donald Trump said that he is ordering the U.S. Trade Representative and the Commerce Department to begin the process to impose a 100% tariff on imports of movies that are produced in “foreign lands.”

Calling runaway production a “national security threat,” Trump’s comments follow reports that one of his “special ambassadors” to Hollywood, Jon Voight, was a devising a plan to save the entertainment industry.

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Trump wrote on Truth Social: “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. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! 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 later told reporters: “Other nations have been stealing the … movie-making capability of the United States. I said to a couple of people, ‘What do you think?’ I have done some very strong research over the last week, and we are making very few movies now. Hollywood is being destroyed. Now you have a grossly incompetent governor that allowed that to happen, so I am not just blaming other nations, but other nations, a lot of them, have stolen our movie industry. If they are not willing to make a movie inside the United States, and we should have a tariff on movies that come in. And not only that, governments are actually giving big money. They are supporting them financially. So that is sort of a threat to our country in a sense.”

He added: “It’s been a very popular thing. Moviemakers love it.”

Voight has met with various guild officials and studio executives in recent weeks, and there was some expectation of a federal tax incentive. There has long been a push within the industry for a more robust federal tax incentive, as opposed to state tax breaks, as a way to keep more production in the United States. Union representatives have been raising the idea of a federal tax break to further incentivize domestic production for some time as production crews have seen the loss of work over many years.

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But among studios, there also have been concerns that Trump would try to impose restrictions on any filming overseas, as generous incentives in the UK, Canada and Australia long have lured Hollywood studio tentpole production. Major Hollywood studios have come to depend on those overseas incentives as a way to try to reduce production costs.

A spokesperson for the Motion Picture Association declined comment.

Trump’s announcement did not make mention of TV series productions, which produce heavily in Canada. Streamers like Netflix do a heavy share of their production outside the U.S., along with licensing foreign content.

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It’s unclear how Trump’s call for 100% tariffs will work, including how they would be implemented. Another issue is when a tariff may be imposed with productions that may shoot parts overseas and parts in the United States or do post production in the U.S. Trump’s existing tariffs do not apply to services, and there currently is a World Trade Organization moratorium on digital goods that is in effect through 2026.

Also unclear is whether a tariff would apply to movies already in production overseas, or partially in foreign countries, like Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which has been shooting in Morocco, with plans for other locations including Sicily. But currently, sources tell us, The Odyssey is shooting in Los Angeles on a studio lot soundstage. Additionally, Disney and Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday is filming in the UK. The Legendary-produced and Warner Bros-distributed Dune: Messiah, the third film n the franchise, is set to start filming in Hungary in September. This follows up on the 2022 shoot for the Oscar-nominated Dune: Part Two, which also took place in the Viktor Orbán-ruled nation.

Spokespersons for the U.S. Trade Representative and the Commerce Department did not immediately return a request for comment.

Trump has complained about trade deficits as he has imposed tariffs on other countries, but the movie industry has been a bright spot. According to the Motion Picture Association, the industry generated a positive balance of trade in every major market in the world, with exports 3.1 times that of imports. The industry produced $22.6 billion in exports, and $15.3 billion in trade surplus. Trump’s point, though, was to keep that production within the U.S.

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That said, other countries also could respond to the 100% tariff with their own duties on U.S. films, which would have an impact on international box office returns, which are a huge chunk of major studio revenue. Disney, the global box office leader in 2024, drew $2.23 billion in the U.S. and $3.23 billion internationally.

Last month, in response to Trump’s 145% tariffs on goods from China, Beijing responded by vowing to reduce the number of U.S. movies imported into the country.

One economist, Justin Wolfers at the University of Michigan, ridiculed Trump’s proposal. “As far as I can tell, the rationale for Trump’s deranged new tariffs on movies is that he has learned that folks in other countries compete for business, and he doesn’t like it,” Wolfers wrote on X. “Wait until he hears about… every single other sector in the economy.”

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Dominic Patten contributed to this report

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