Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies 'produced in foreign lands'
Source: Guardian
Donald Trump on Sunday announced on his Truth Social platform a 100% tariff on all movies “produced in Foreign Lands”.
In his post, he claimed to have authorized the Department of Commerce and the US trade representative to immediately begin instituting such a tariff, although he gave no details on how it would be implemented.
“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!”
The film industry has already been feeling the effects of the tariffs as China in April responded to the announcements by reducing the quota of American movies allowed into that country.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/04/trump-tariffs-foreign-movies
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OrlandoDem2
(2,891 posts)
Trueblue1968
(18,597 posts)#InvestigateTrunp. #ImpeachTrump. #LockUpTrump
And by the way .... TrumpIsTheAntiChrist
Buddyzbuddy
(1,015 posts)Tarzanrock
(1,088 posts)Day by day -- the insane madman sinks deeper and deeper into his insanity. The abyss is staring back at the Turd.
Fiendish Thingy
(19,538 posts)Almost all of their movies are made in Canada.
Eugene
(65,387 posts)Keeping foreign ideas out is also a key driver of his immigration policy as well.
Aside from the violence this does to the free exchange of ideas, it would backfire badly on the US film industry, which is an exporter of content. (Then again, I wouldn't put him intentionally trying to kill Hollywood off the table.)
Stephen Miller, is this your idea?
orangecrush
(25,063 posts)Tarzanrock
(1,088 posts)The Canadian film and television industry will fight back against the Turd's idiocy. Keep digging that economic hole,
Turd.
Bernardo de La Paz
(56,478 posts)
bmichaelh
(834 posts)Where in the world is he getting his facts.
Looking at the top 10 films grossing domestically last year, they were American studios.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2024/
There is a Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2 that has already grossed over 2 billion but tariffs will not impact on ticket prices overseas.
Lulu KC
(8,129 posts)I wonder how he'll figure out what to do about that. 
customerserviceguy
(25,219 posts)another provocation to Canada that I am going to have to explain (impossible!) to my Canadian family.
Grokenstein
(6,033 posts)And the GOP continues to let this nonsense go on.
Hey, I wonder what dim donnie's "Hollywood ambassadors" think of this BS? I haven't heard a peep from them since they were announced. Were they even aware of this great blessing and huge boost to their careers (/s)? Did Kevin Sorbo and Dean Cain wet themselves in fury for not being picked?
bmichaelh
(834 posts)BTW, today is May 4th and Star Wars was influenced by the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa and his actor, Toshiro Mifune.
Plot wise, there are similarities between A New Hope and Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress.
First choice of Lucas to play Kenobi was Mifune, not Alec Guinness.
Even American-produced films have strong international influences.
reACTIONary
(6,473 posts)... Tahei and Matashichi became R2D2 and C3PO.
underpants
(191,071 posts)Aside from location shots.
localroger
(3,763 posts)Canada has very strong support for filmmakers. Even films made by American studios with no scenes obviously shot in Canada will almost always have a round of placards thanking various Canadian authorities for their support at the end of the credits -- just saw this today with Marvel's Thunderbolts movie. Then you have films that are almost entirely made in Canada because of their pro film studio policies, to the point where some critics joke that alien worlds in general seem to bear an amazing resemblance to British Columbia.
And how is this tariff to be collected? At the box office? Well that will work. Not. A modern film is made of information. It goes back and forth in digital form, being processed, edited, converted, and reworked in many steps after filming (with digital cameras) is long finished. How do you measure where that final file that gets submitted to the Library of Congress and the Oscar committee came from? How do you tell when and where it crossed the border? What happens if US and Canadian FX animators are working together and passing their work products back and forth?
The whole idea is beyond stupid. One might as well try to tax breathing. Oh wait, I probably shouldn't be giving them ideas.
underpants
(191,071 posts)As I’ve posted elsewhere, US dates do this all the time. Georgia N. Carolina and Virginia I know about specifically. A lot of shows are filmed in Georgia.
Grokenstein
(6,033 posts)(TW: potentially offensive instances of imagery and language.)
The Gumby at the very end is a perfect representation of the average trumpnik.
Beastly Boy
(12,693 posts)I will miss Black Adder too... and Black Adder Two, too...
Martin68
(25,950 posts)Bluetus
(1,152 posts)that he is claiming gives him the right to assess any such tariff?
This is all illegal. The media must stop reporting this as "Trump has declared ..." That's baloney. There is no basis in any law or the Constitution for any of the tariffs he is arbitrarily imposing. These are all just part of a shakedown racket. The movie studios will but a million into his meme coins and Trump will drop the shakedown.
Tetrachloride
(8,776 posts)and what about 10,000 BC ?
this will help out PBS that’s for sure
LudwigPastorius
(12,680 posts)
Historic NY
(39,029 posts)Using online file sharing services or cloud storage providers. These services allow you to upload the movie file, create a shareable link, and then send the link to the recipient in the US
AverageOldGuy
(2,650 posts)He ordered Bureau of Prisons to re-open Alcatraz.
He has finally lost his mind.
Initech
(105,256 posts)Alienating our allies with this bullshit tariff scheme isn't going to win us fans. 
Bernardo de La Paz
(56,478 posts)Initech
(105,256 posts)
Bernardo de La Paz
(56,478 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(56,478 posts)
SunSeeker
(56,013 posts)They explicitly did not leave it to the whims of a single man, let alone a madman.
All of his tariffs are illegal. There is no emergency. And even if there were, that emergency law he is relying on does not even mention tariffs. There is a lawsuit winding its way through the courts on this point by the state of California.
Initech
(105,256 posts)They claim to be the most flag waving rah rah America loving patriots who ever America'd, but they are doing everything to destroy our country. And they will happily kiss Trump's ass while he and Fox News send this country into the abyss.
dwilso40641
(201 posts)Send him to El Salvador
jmowreader
(52,416 posts)I don't think it's "movies produced outside the US" that are the problem.
Some of the things that MIGHT be the problem:
1. Streaming.
2. A myriad of other entertainment options.
3. Trump's economy, which is moving funds from optional purchases like movie tickets to necessities like gasoline and food.
4. Too many comic book movies.
5. Too many Jesus movies - the last time I went to the theater (I saw "The Day the Earth Blew Up," which I thought was good) there were FOUR different Jesus movies on four different screens in that theater. Three of them were the three parts of the Last Supper movie that were released a week apart - this cinema had all three.
6. WAY too many movies no one likes.
7. No one wants to leave the house anymore.
8. Live-action remakes of animation. Non-Disney studios are getting into that now; "How to Train Your Dragon" is coming soon to theaters, and a live-action Disney "Lilo and Stitch" is upcoming.
How about doing a film of "The Book of Mormon" or "Avenue Q"? Probably because Trump's fan club would firebomb theaters if they did...I don't think they'd handle "Hasa Diga Eebowai" very well.
Septua
(2,800 posts)In Trump's mind, anyone or anything that threatens his agenda, is a National Security threat. And if there is a true National Security threat, you don't tax it, you eliminate it...
Truth be known and as others have suggested, all his fcking daily rants, threats and moronic EOs are just efforts to distract attention away from his declining favorability poll numbers with virtually every thing he's done...and doing.
JBTaurus83
(526 posts)Has completely failed in its duties. This is ridiculous.
Sancho
(9,148 posts)Spaghetti Westerns kept the movie industry together!
Mountain Mule
(1,155 posts)Oh, wait. I just remembered - the tangerine nightmare is already trying to cut the funding for NPR and PBS. I bet books by "foreign" authors will be next.
SouthBayDem
(32,702 posts)Since when have movies been entitled to an audience in their native country?
BidenRocks
(1,643 posts)Retaliatory tariffs will hurt the workers in the industry.
Thanks chump. Everything he touches turns to shit.
Montauk6
(9,140 posts)I'd even go to a theatre again for that.
sinkingfeeling
(55,546 posts)
Blue Dotty
(128 posts)Let's all just immerse ourselves in one small continent on this planet. While the arts and theater evolve, we can look up to his butt kissing "stars" if they are still alive like James Woods, Clint Eastwood, Dennis Quaid, and his ditzy brother Randy. No thanks.
Bernardo de La Paz
(56,478 posts)He starred in a delightful 1985 movie of a Mordecai Richler 1980 novel "Joshua Then And Now". Shot entirely in Canada. Alan Arkin was very good in it. It was rather jarring when in recent years Woods went full-on wood-headed for reich wing and tRump.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Then_and_Now_%28film%29
RazorbackExpat
(491 posts)Trump even fired a DoJ attorney for her opposition to letting the domestic abuser own a gun 
angryxyouth
(243 posts)As a liberal and as a member of IATSE in the US. I have seen the film industry jobs disappear. It started when NAFTA kicked in. I was working on commercials at the time and lost 90% of my work. It all went up to Canada. At the time I was non union but was recruited into IATSE because they wanted to have crews large enough to make Pennsylvania viable place to make Films with reliable crew numbers. I live in Philadelphia, the first movie I worked on was The Sixth Sense. Film production was still getting sucked up to Canada, especially Scifi and many of your favorite shows on what were the smaller networks at the time. Then came the tax incentive wars between the states. California lost, the South won, especially Atlanta. NewYork was doing great mostly because they invested in new studios and talent loves living in NYC. The only thing keeping Philadelphia’s film production alive was M Night Shyamalan and some other films that took advantage of tax incentives while we had them. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia had to fight for those and they were limited. The Teamsters were more expensive in Philadelphia and so we lost a lot of films and TV to them. Tax incentives were never really embraced by the politicians in Pa. and the great Philly guys pretty much went to work in NY. We were in the same Union and they needed more crew so it wasn’t a problem. Many tv shows that were based on being in Philadelphia were being shot in LA, like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Just exteriors were shot in Philly. Night is also shooting more in Canada. So fast forwarded a bit to Covid. The editing that was being done in California and in the rest of the states, stared getting done remotely in the homes of the editors. Most of the CG work had already gone overseas to the cheaper countries, I’m sure you have noticed that if you watch the credits, Poland is a big one, so is Ireland. So after covid the studios said Wow, digital editing can be done remotely over the internet with no lag time, lets send that overseas too. So you see where this story is headed. Most film crews in the US.are made up of liberals except for the teamsters and most of the jobs are disappearing. It’s 3am. and I think I made my point.
Old Crank
(5,766 posts)To reruns of Spaghetti Westerns?
Botany
(74,422 posts)Just asking? Foreign films can be accessed via the net and can’t have tariffs put
on them.
Envirogal
(211 posts)The amount of runaway filming production is a serious issue in Los Angeles and elsewhere in California. The last five years have been absolutely devastating for Los Angeles with every thing that has hit us – – the pandemic, strikes the fires, the cost of living, etc.. but the thing that has hurt the worst in my opinion is the amount of filming production that has gone overseas and to Mexico. Netflix has really amped us up since almost nothing they produce is local anymore. Marvel movies are completely filmed in England. And post production is moving elsewhere as well.
But it is also the race to the bottom of other US states putting sweetheart deals out for productions. It seems every state wants their piece of that pie and they have been doing it for decades. All the states ever do is poach from California’s industries in a net loss for the United States in total.
If anyone thinks the film industry is going to be loyal to their state, they have another thing coming productions are temporary and they go where they’re gonna get the bestbang for their buck. All it does is lower the threshold of tax they pay into the entire US (federal is affected bigly). Again, race to the bottom.
And the film industry makes so much Money because of all the revenue opportunities once the production is released. if it weren’t for the ability for all this poaching, both foreign and domestic, the film industry would pay their fair share taxes. But it’s becoming another welfare entity.
Passages
(2,905 posts)Envirogal
(211 posts)So I agree with you and you can see by the news headlines later in the day, it was just a distraction and it’s another round of silly statements made by Donvict.
But something does need to be done to lessen the incentives to move production to cheaper areas while still getting the benefits of being an American business.
angryxyouth
(243 posts)I agree to most of what you said but all US states have the right to work. It is a shame that the studios go for the lowest rate. One of the last shows I worked on was in Virginia. The Decorator was a friend from other movies so I said yes. Then the producer called and said they were paying prevailing wage. The wage was $15 an hour. Up north that is not even a living wage for me. So I basically lost money because I gave up a commercial. Being nice loyal friend sucks sometimes. I was making $35-$50 depending on Commercials or Movies. So I understand the race to the bottom. The Unions need to level the playing field . There should be enough work to spread around with all of the streaming content needed. The are cutting way back on quality. Nobody seems to care about continuity anymore. Reverse shot action doesn’t line up, props don’t match, fine, moving on. We are like every other industry, the corporate bastards go for the cheapest production costs to keep stock prices up for the shareholders and the producers/ Studios. But talent still gets millions which I personally think is fucked. Hollywood became the movie capital but that doesn’t give them the privilege of being the only place where films should be made. The first films in the US were made in daylight studios in Valley Forge Pa. But shit changes.
Passages
(2,905 posts)Canada Kid
(223 posts)Attacking the movie industry is just a small part of the destruction and havoc being unleashed on American society. Calling him insane or ruthless or unscrupulous, or any other obvious name or label does not serve to get rid of him. Strong legal minds must figure out how to stop him using the constitutional, federal, and state legal laws to get rid of him and his cronies once and for all. One who openly views and praises the Proud Boys as "good guys" is a facist dictator to be gotten rid of.
Grins
(8,472 posts)“This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.”
Can anyone explain that?