As part of this initiative, President Donald Trump announced that all foreign films looking for distribution in US territorye must pay said tax. Through his official account in the Truth Social Network, he said that “Hollywood is dying” and held international cinema for the fall of film projects in his country.
The president justified this measure as a mechanism to protect the national industry compared to what he described as an unfair competition, since, he said, foreign studies have taken American talent to develop their own productions.
Trump linked this new policy to his tariff war with countries such as China, accusing other nations of offering “all kinds of incentives to move filmmakers and studies in the United States away”, which, he said, has weakened the national audiovisual sector.
He also warned that the growth of cinema in markets such as China and Latin America represents a “joint effort of other nations” to undermine the US industry, something that, he said, constitutes “a threat to national security.”
In their pronouncement he did not detail whether these tariffs will only apply to filmed productions abroad or if they will also affect Hollywood movies that use locations outside the United States.
Trump described international cinema as part of a “message and propaganda strategy”. Therefore, he instructed the Department of Commerce and the United States commercial representative to apply the tax in its entirety to all foreign productions.
The proposal arises after a report from the Produro firm indicated that the production of film and television in the United States fell 26% in 2024, compared to the levels recorded in 2021.
The measure also coincides with recent Guild strikes in Hollywood for the recognition of labor rights, as well as with the fires that affected properties of influential figures of the industry.
Asked by the C-Span digital channel, Trump defended the measure: “What they have done is that other nations have been stealing the films, the cinematographic capabilities of the United States,” he said, as an explanation to the decline of Hollywood.
In addition, he held the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, for the deterioration of the sector, and justified the need to implement the tariff. In response, Newsom told the Digital Magazine that “we believe that it has no authority to impose tariffs under the International Economic Emergency Powers Law, since tariffs do not appear as a remedy by virtue of that law.”