Trump Vows to “Protect” Us From Foreign-Made Films

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social site yesterday. This is an observation we’ve made here on BFG. (Is he a reader?)

But here’s the thing: Rather than having a plan as to how to make the U.S. film industry more competitive—say by providing incentives for filming in the U.S.—Trump is wielding his Mjollnir and smashing the studios by continuing:

“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.”

Note that “Foreign Lands.” Clearly the man has a worldview from early in the previous century. It’s surprising he didn’t use “Exotic Lands” or something else that brings Marlene Dietrich to mind.

While most people would perceive as simply a case of Hollywood studios looking for a place where they can get a better deal, not Trump. He wrote:

“Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives”—or as some might describe it: Making a deal—“to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.”

That’s right, there is evidently some sort of Axis of Celluloid consisting of Pinewood Studios, Gaumont, and Cinecitta Studios that are making Americans want to consume fish and chips, croissants and espresso.

So Trump is invoking Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. That act is about protecting national security, as in giving “consideration to domestic production needed for projected national defense requirements, the capacity of domestic industries to meet such requirements, existing and anticipated availabilities of the human resources, products, raw materials, and other supplies and services essential to the national defense.”

He’s using that act to put the 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Another section in the act refers to “displacement of any domestic products by excessive imports shall be considered, without excluding other factors, in determining whether such weakening of our internal economy may impair the national security.”

Somehow it seems that grips, gaffers, boom operators, and other below-the-line workers are not exactly the sorts of things that one would associate with “the national defense,” unless, of course, there are plans to reconstitute the Office of War Information and the Bureau of Motion Pictures to provide Americans with a view of the Golden Age that Trump says tariffs will bring. And what’s more, probably give jobs to his special ambassadors to Hollywood, Stallone, Voight and Gibson.

While Hollywood’s competition from foreign studios (again: economic, not insidious) is certainly real, what Trump doesn’t recognize is the fact that Hollywood’s—and Sacramento’s—failings are also a consequence of competition from other American locales.

Thunderbolts* filmed in Georgia, not Romania. Sinners  filmed in Louisiana.

Why? Because studios deemed that to be most cost-effective for the productions.

Thunderbolts* came out of Trilith Studios in Atlanta. There is also Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. And Netflix Albuquerque Studios in New Mexico and Santa Fe Studios in the same state. There are Cinespace Chicago Film Studios in Illinois and World Wide Stages in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

In other words, there is a solid domestic base outside of Hollywood, so our national defense is safe on that score.

But there is another issue that Trump’s declaration ignores: the importance of foreign markets to Hollywood.

In December 2022 the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta released a paper titled “Globalization and Heterogeneity: Evidence from Hollywood.” It points out that in 2012 the U.S. and China came to an agreement that would allow access of Hollywood films to the Chinese market. Consequently:

“Hollywood studios responded by redirecting resources to sequels, remakes, and spinoffs, which are seen as less risky than original movies to take to the Chinese market. Hollywood increased its output of science fiction movies and coproduced films with Chinese studios in deals that enhanced market access. US filmmakers also have reduced investments in R-rated movies and comedies, two genres that don’t fare well in China.”

All of those Avengers sequels weren’t just the consequence of a lot of U.S. fanboys.

Although the China movie market is declining in terms of consumption of product from Hollywood—just as the number of Buicks sold in Beijing isn’t what it used to be—acceptance of product from the U.S. is still important to the U.S. film industry.

According to a report released in January by the Motion Picture Association, “The industry generated a positive balance of trade in every major market in the world.”

The U.S. film industry created a $15.3 billion trade surplus with the rest of the world. 

Although the Trump Administration’s calculation of alleged trade deficits with other countries do not include services, the Motion Picture Association points out that $15.3 billion trade surplus is greater than that achieved by U.S. “telecommunications, transportation, insurance, and health related service sectors.”

The proverbial bottom line to all this is that Trump is going to make it a whole lot more expensive to not only make movies but to see movies at your local theaters. If films cost more to make—and they will—then the studios are going to want a return on their investments, which ticket prices will reflect.

Perhaps the Trump calculus is that you don’t need to see 30 movies. Two will do.