“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,” Trump said late Sunday
in a post on his Truth Social platform. “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”
But studio executives on Sunday were surprised by the announcement, saying they had no advance notice of the tariffs plan and didn’t know the details of how it would be applied.
Movie executives reached Sunday privately wondered how a tariff would be imposed on a film, which, like a car, has components made in different countries while post-production often occurs in the U.S.
--
This really is a bit of a head scratcher. At least as a tariff. Particularly in an age of digital filmmaking, no 'thing' may actually be 'imported' from overseas. And even if it were, what's the value of two-thirds of a reel of exposed undeveloped film?
Instituted as some sort of tax on distributors/theaters would be more practical, but it really does seem hard to work out.
Anyway, are we going to see interesting remakes like Death on the Willamette or Lawrence of Alabama?
All of that said, I'm sure California would welcome more domestic productions, but the studios probably less so.
