Trump threatens a 100% tariff on foreign-made films, saying the movie industry in the US is dying

By JILL COLVIN and JAKE COYLE Associated Press NEW YORK President Donald Trump is opening a new salvo in his tariff war targeting films made outside the U S In a post Sunday night on his Truth Social platform Trump disclosed he has authorized the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U S Exchange Representative to slap a tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands RELATED California job arena flops as it lands near bottom among US states The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death he wrote complaining that other countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw filmmakers and studios away from the U S This is a concerted effort by other Nations and therefore a National Defense threat It is in addition to everything else messaging and propaganda Related Articles How particular California farms are getting squeezed by funding freezes and tariffs Homebuyers dilemma As Trump tariffs swing stock industry hold off Or buy the dip Amid Cinco de Mayo celebrations a tax on Mexican tomatoes looms Atmosphere change is making coffee more expensive Tariffs likely will too U S market system shrinks in first quarter as Trump deal wars disrupt businesses It wasn t instantly clear how any such tariff on international productions could be implemented It s common for both large and small films to include production in the U S and in other countries Big-budget movies like the upcoming Mission Impossible The Final Reckoning for instance are shot around the world Incentive programs for years have influenced where movies are shot increasingly driving film production out of California and to other states and countries with favorable tax incentives like Canada and the United Kingdom Yet Trump s tariffs are designed to lead consumers toward American products And in movie theaters American-produced movies overwhelming dominate the domestic marketplace China has ramped up its domestic movie production culminating in the animated blockbuster Ne Zha grossing more than billion this year But even then its sales came almost entirely from mainland China In North America it earned just million In New Zealand where successive governments have offered rebates and incentives in up-to-date years to draw Hollywood films to the country the film industry has generated billions of dollars in tourism revenue driven by the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films which featured the country s pristine and scenic vistas More in the last few days the blockbuster Minecraft movie was filmed entirely in New Zealand and U S productions in delivered billion New Zealand dollars million to the country in return for NZ million in subsidies according to regime figures New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon reported he was awaiting more details of Trump s measures before commenting on them but would continue to pitch to filmmakers abroad including in India s Bollywood We ve got an absolutely world class industry he explained This is the best place to make movies period in the world The Motion Picture Association which represents major U S film studios and streaming services didn t promptly respond to messages Sunday evening The MPA s input shows how much Hollywood exports have dominated cinemas According to the MPA the American movies produced billion in exports and billion in pact surplus in Trump a Republican 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 tariff on Chinese goods and a baseline tariff on goods from other countries with even higher levies threatened By unilaterally imposing tariffs Trump has exerted extraordinary influence over the flow of commerce creating political risks and pulling the arena in different directions There are tariffs on autos steel and aluminum with more imports including pharmaceutical drugs set to be subject to new tariffs in the weeks ahead Trump has long voiced concern about movie production moving overseas Shortly before he took office he declared 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 U S film and television production has been hampered in contemporary years with setbacks from the COVID- pandemic the Hollywood guild strikes of and the contemporary wildfires in the Los Angeles area Overall production in the U S was down last year compared with according to figures from ProdPro which tracks production The group s annual survey of executives which questioned about preferred filming locations revealed no location in the U S made the top five according to the Hollywood Reporter Toronto the U K Vancouver Central Europe and Australia came out on top with California placing sixth Georgia seventh New Jersey eighth and New York ninth The predicament is especially acute in California In the greater Los Angeles area production last year was down from according to FilmLA second only to during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic Last October Gov Gavin Newsom a Democrat proposed expanding California s Film Television Tax Credit activity to million annually up from million Other U S cities like Atlanta New York Chicago and San Francisco have also used aggressive tax incentives to lure film and TV productions Those programs can take the form of 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 Trump narrated reporters at the White House on Sunday 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 Associated Press writers Gary Field in Washington and Charlotte Graham-McLay in Wellington New Zealand contributed to this overview from Washington