Jay Rohr
Recently, President of the United States Donald Trump announced his intention to slap down foreign films with hard-hitting tariffs. He declared this initiative on Truth Social. The rambling declaration implies foreign countries are trying to undermine the United States by stealing our film industry. Due to him being in a position of power, it must be taken somewhat seriously.
A few might say there’s no need to acknowledge this. It’s just Trump spewing out a distraction rather than a policy decision. He doesn’t want anyone paying attention to the economy, or his unconstitutional actions against immigrants — focus on the fights which matter. However, journalism is a big tree covering an array of topics, and when one’s own branch is being sawed off by the clown show, it’s time to call out the fools.
Economic actions like this can have wide-ranging consequences. The movie industry may not be the largest cog in the U.S. money machine but crippling it in any fashion risks a significant ripple effect. Billions of dollars could suddenly be gone due to reduced consumer spending because of price increases as well as layoffs and canceled film productions.
According to the Motion Picture Association’s latest economic impact report, they spent $21 billion in payments to 194,000 local businesses across the country alongside $38 billion in revenue generated by various taxes. The film and television industry are responsible for 2.32 million jobs, earning nearly $229 billion in wages. Tariffs may not imperil those numbers down to zero, but any significant dip would be bad for the movie business as well as the country.
Trump may not realize this, partly because, as former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen observed, he doesn’t understand basic economics. Regardless, massive industries are woven throughout the whole economy. Disabling anything over a certain size produces broad reaching negative results. When someone with no understanding how an industry works tries to run the controls it will inevitably lead to catastrophe.
William Reinsch, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said, “The retaliation will kill our industry. We have a lot more to lose than to gain.”
China has already declared intentions to reduce the amount of movies imported from the United States. That’s a market Hollywood counts on. Meanwhile, Phillipa Childs, head of Bectu, the British media and entertainment union, believes the tariffs could kill the UK film industry which has been struggling to recover since COVID.
Very few feature films are made solely within the United States. Hollywood shoots in a variety of locations for any number of reasons. Nosferatu (2024) was filmed in Prague, Wicked (2024) was shot in Britain, and parts of Thunderbolts (2025) were captured in Malayasia. Barbie’s California dreamhouse was built and filmed in a UK studio. The reasoning for such choices can be as simple as setting or budget consciousness inclined by financial incentives. In other words, it’s cheaper to make movies in foreign countries.
And this isn’t a one-way street. Popular “Bollywood movies of the past two decades have used the Brooklyn Bridge, Miami’s beaches and Chicago’s neighborhoods as backdrops… adding to the attraction of U.S. cities for Indian tourists.” The Indian diaspora in the U.S. is roughly five million people. These tariffs would financially punish them for watching a taste of home.
This begs the question, though, what exactly constitutes a foreign film? The money may be from the United States, but if the production is entirely abroad will it be subject to tariffs? If an Indian company makes a film entirely in the U.S., is it a foreign feature?
Currently, there’s no clear answer because there’s zero plan. Like many of his ideas, Trump has proposed something in general without specifics. Perhaps special advisers like Jon Voight are expected to compose particulars resembling an economic plan. To that end, the Hollywood actor has offered a proposal geared towards tax incentives and a “minimum threshold AMERICAN cultural test”, though there’s no way to know if the administration will adopt it. Without specifics, no one can prepare for what’s coming. That’s a recipe for panic rather than prudent action.
What’s almost worse is Trump’s clear misunderstanding of art. He views it the way he sees all things through the myopic scope of a competitive capitalistic cash grab. If there’s no money to be made, he sees no point in it.
Art is a conversation. Creative endeavors inspire others to create additions to that dialogue. Sometimes this is a direct exchange. Such as when Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky made Solaris (1972) because he found Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) “cold and sterile.” Both films then inspiring Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar (2014). Sometimes it’s an acknowledgement, a tip of the hat better known as a homage. Wes Anderson repeatedly peppers his pictures with nods to French New Wave films. The point being the influence of foreign films has inspired the very Hollywood that exists today.
Although the Star Wars franchise has earned roughly fifteen billion dollars from its movies alone, those features owe a lot to the work of legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. The New Hollywood directors from the mid-1960s like Martin Scorsese took inspiration from the French New Wave. Visual choices in flicks such as Breathless (1960) would change the way movies were made forever. Quentin Tarantino often weaves a quilt of material ripped straight from foreign gems like City on Fire (1987), Lady Snowblood (1973), and 8 ½ (1963).
Major movie studios are suffering for myriad reasons. None of which involve a conspiratorial plot by foreigners to undermine and steal the U.S. film industry. Trump’s intended tariffs are more likely to hurt filmmaking than help it, mostly by driving up costs. Worse, it could mean losing access to foreign films which offer a refreshingly different perspective — the real point of cinema is to show the world from every angle. Unfortunately, Trump can’t see past cash to the economic and cultural ruin on the horizon.
