By Andrea Shalal and Tim Reid
WASHINGTON (Sazua.com) – On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump declared a 100% tariff on foreign-produced movies, stating that the domestic film industry was facing an extremely rapid decline because of the benefits other nations provided to attract American filmmakers.
“This is a coordinated action by other countries, making it a national security issue. On top of all this, it involves messaging and propaganda,” Trump stated in a post on Truth Social.
Trump said he was authorizing the relevant U.S. 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.
Trump added: “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”
The Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick posted on X stating, “We’ve got it covered.”
Neither Lutnick nor Trump offered any specifics on the implementation of the tariffs.
In January, Trump nominated three renowned actors from Hollywood—Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone, and Mel Gibson—to help revitalize the industry with their expertise, aiming to make it bigger, better, and stronger than ever before.
For many years, movie and television productions have been leaving Hollywood for places offering tax breaks that reduce costs. Crew members had hoped for a resurgence in Los Angeles following the writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023, yet data indicates that this recovery has been gradual at best.
The wildfires that devastated parts of Los Angeles in January intensified worries that production companies might seek alternative filming locations, and that crew members such as camera operators, costume designers, sound technicians, and others who work behind the scenes could choose to relocate instead of attempting to reconstruct their homes and communities.
The film and television production in Los Angeles has decreased by approximately 40% within the past ten years, as reported by FilmLA, a nonprofit organization monitoring the area’s productions.
Countries across the globe have introduced more substantial tax incentives and monetary refunds to attract film and television productions, aiming to secure a larger portion of the estimated $248 billion global expenditure predicted by Ampere Analysis for content production in 2025.
This tweet from Trump follows his initiation of a trade dispute with China and the imposition of worldwide tariffs, actions that have unsettled financial markets and raised concerns about an impending U.S. economic downturn.
William Reinsch, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former high-ranking Commerce Department official, stated that retaliatory measures against President Trump’s international film tariffs would have disastrous consequences.
He warned that reprisals could destroy our industry. The potential losses outweigh the gains significantly,” he stated, further noting that it would be challenging to argue a national security or emergency situation regarding film production.
(Reported by Andrea Shalal, Jasper Ward, and Tim Reid; Edited by Jacqueline Wong, Humeyra Pamuk, Diane Craft, and Himani Sarkar)
