Why Trump’s Foreign-Film Tariff Doesn’t Make Sense

“The film industry in America dies from a very rapid death,” said President Donald Trump poster On his social social platform Social Sunday evening. “Other countries offer all kinds of incentives to remove our filmmakers and studios from the United States. Hollywood and many other areas in the United States are devastated. It is a concerted effort by other nations and, therefore, a national security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, propaganda and propaganda! All the films that enter our country that are produced in foreign lands.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick replied on x: “We are there.”

But the experts indicate on time that it is not clear how such a policy would work or which would be billed for such a price.

“I know that it is not the American government or the work of the president to understand how the films are made,” explains Kathryn Arnold, the entertainment consultant, “but if you understand how complex and interconnected – both on a production and a level of distribution – it is devastating and has no sense.”

While the president has identified a real problem – the American film industry has indeed suffer While production moves more and more abroad – experts are suitable that Trump's apparently preferred political tool, prices, is not really an applicable solution.

Until now, Trump’s World Trade War has involved slaps of samples from foreign products, for which the United States is a net importer. But foreign films are intellectual property and are part of the world trade in services, for which the United States is in fact net export.

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“The operational theory that the Trump administration seems to adopt is that if they make foreign manufacturing more attractive for any part of the American industry, this will lead to an improvement in national manufacturing. So, if there are prices on something from abroad, he is supposed to inspire manufacturing in the country, “explains Tom Nunan, a lecturer at the theater school, from television to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). “It was predictable that he would also turn to entertainment.”

“If it is a prohibitive costs of producing films and episodic television, or acquiring episodic films or televisions from foreign territories, then it would be judged, at least from the point of view of its administration, that foreign production would return to the United States. I think it is operational theory, at least”, says Nunan, adding however that “it is not black or white like that.”

Addressing journalists outside the White House on Sunday evening, Trump said: “Other nations have stolen the capacity for creating the United States.” Trump added that he had done “very strong research” in last week and that “Hollywood is destroyed” and “if they are not willing to make a film in the United States, then we should have a price on the films that enter”.

While Hollywood saw a decline In production in recent years, partly due to the increase in labor costs, Arnold says to a time that Trump could really try to reverse this trend by offering incentives, such as tax creditsFor filming in the United States, which certain foreign countries and cities are already doing as well as several American states. But that would only have an impact on an aspect of cinema, and some films run on several locations. Arnold has added that many films are also co -produced by several production companies in all countries.

Offering an incitement to specific aspects of production would be much simpler than trying to determine whether a film is “American” or “foreign” in order to penalize the latter.

The office of the US trade representative has said That although services are not subject to prices, they can be subject to commercial obstacles such as regulatory requirements. But with regard to cinema and entertainment, imposing certain restrictions can lead to a dramatically less free media environment in the country.

In China, foreign films – defined as any film not produced by production companies approved at the national level, which cannot have more than 49% foreign participation – are subject to strict censorship and quotas, which require to go through distributors managed by the State. And in response to Trump's recent prices against the country's property, the Chinese government has announced that it would be “reduce“The quota of American films allowed in its massive but closely controlled market.