35
votes
Donald Trump says he’s pursuing 100% tariffs on movies produced outside US, calling runaway production “a national security threat”
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- Authors
- Ted Johnson
- Published
- May 4 2025
- Word count
- 194 words
This is basically a double win for Trump - it is horrible for Canada as we'll potentially be losing a quarter million or more jobs, and it is horrible for Hollywood who he hates, as it'll become unpalatable to film in some prime locations (Vancouver, Toronto).
Edit: How the fuck do you even tariff a movie? This doesn't make any sense.
Yeah I'm stuck on how do you tariff a movie. I suppose the distribution company will get stuck with the tab? Theater costs and ticket prices go up? Maybe? I'm pretty maxed out on movie ticket prices personally and it's part of why I rarely go
Between this and the Alcatraz announcement, I'm actually legitimately wondering if there is a medication or something that he normally takes that he stopped taking. Even conservative spaces online seem to be less gung ho about these things than past things, and I think a lot of them are not pleased about the 51st state rhetoric.
Of course, some rabid fans will parrot it back ad infinitum, but that's how cults work.
No, he's just used to ruling by tweet now, so whatever he feels like saying is now law in his eyes.
There's no logic or policy or strategy behind any of this.
Honestly, one of the biggest problems with Trumps character. Between the constant narcissistic posturing no matter the absurdity, and his own genuine lack of intelligence, it's difficult to tell how much his age is affecting him. Logically, it's had some affect, considering he doesn't take care of himself and has a history of drug use. But we likely won't know the extent until he gets to a point where he can't even string one of his spaghetti run-on sentences together.
That being said, I can't believe so many people are fooled by a person for whom this is even an issue.
Someone performatively hurting the "right" people is enough to make them follow him to the ends of the earth. Everything else doesn't matter.
So many examples. Asking about nuking hurricanes. The Sharpi incident......
Following an article I read today about hedge funds buying up classics and incentivizing streaming platforms to keep us sweatin' to the oldies, I hear this and feel ever more justified in paying for indie and pirating the rest.
Because this is what citizens want... The U.S. President scrolling IMDB in a Sudafed riddled haze looking at where the latest marvel movies are made.
It was probably more like "Chat...GPT...tell me where the movies are made. The big superhero ones...everyone watches. Very popular. Where do they film them? And what year is it?"
And then new tariffs are issued against Asgard and Wakanda.
"Hollywood pissed me off, how do I tariff them"
He asked someone else who used Chatgpt
With all the frustrations and pain of this timeline, we totally deserve the laugh that we would get when Trump xo’s a tariff against an imaginary place. Tariffs against shire pipe weed!
More and more we are descending into the unholy spawn of Eco and Kafka.
He did already impose Tariffs on wholly uninhabited islands - Heard and McDonald Islands likely haven't had people even set foot on them in decades, and they have had a 10% tariff imposed on them. Unfortunately, I think many of us are out of laughs on the matter. He keeps making decisions like he wants to outdo the satire websites for pure stupidity, and he's actively making life worse for people in other countries. When he eventually does impose a tariff on Narnia, it's going to be 1.2 % of Canadians that work in film whose jobs are at stake, or the .7% of Canadians who work in the auto industry. Or the rest of us, who are feeling it as well.
I like that you think he knows how to operate ChatGPT.
I'm imagining it being done by voice, on a machine set up by Musk, followed by "Leon, the computer is broken!"
He's into the entertainment industry. Here he is talking about Parasite winning Best Picture, he was still President during that time lol.
If he is in love with Kim Jong-un, imagine the love affair he'd have with Kim Jong-il 😍
Maybe we can get an executive order subsidizing the production of original movies?
Original movies that feature him, like a Home Alone 2 reboot that focuses on his character instead of that bratty kid.
Im increasingly convinced that the Orange Cheeto honestly does not care if his edicts make sense or are even enforceable. He only cares if his name is on the front page of as many news sites in the world as possible. So if its tariffs on movies or an AI Pope pic, or some ridiculous comment about taking Greenland, it really does not matter, all that matters is that we're talking about him and he's getting press, good, bad or indifferent.
Attention is his oxygen. We all knew highly annoying kids like that in grade school, little Donnie just never progressed beyond that point.
It's not only attention. It's the "create a problem that I can later claim to fix" thing as well. There's a lot of that going on, all the way back to his first term. Make up a problem (or create a problem with a stupid tariff/idea), let people get worked up about it, swoop in later and "solve" the problem by undoing what he did/said in the first place. He then claims he's fixing things and winning and we all die a little bit more.
It is mighty difficult to actually criticise something so stupid, but let's try:
As cultural aspects are effectively soft power, doing something like this is pretty much akin to trying to create music by bulldozing a house.
It is pretty difficult to call other countries producing movies a 'national security treat' unless it's about blatant propaganda, which is another beast. In any case, no matter how it's implemented it's just going to cost American consumers more, not boost domestic production.
Depending on how it'd be implemented working between studios as an international collaboration, something which would actually counteract potential soft power from other countries (see point 1), this could actually backfire and make American culture less dominant.
Because of the hostility you may see other countries taking actions against American movies. Well, as far as you can have that a policy without it being dumb. In any case, you can't sledgehammer your way through soft power. By extension - though not entirely a different point - American culture has been echoing a lot in the west, through soft power. This is going to reduce that and further increase anti-American sentiment.
This will hurt smaller theatres, and by extend consumers. Voters were pissed against the Biden admin for inflation, this will worsen it.
100% is a ridiculous percentage to charge your own people with. Yes yes, I'm aware of the tariffs against China. That is actually even more stupid, but I felt like making this list complete.
As the economist in the article states, you can't reasonably expect other countries to also not have... any economic sector. You're always going to have to compete. America long enjoyed primacy in many aspects post WW2. That situation is not going to come back anytime soon, and certainly not like this.
I'm probably still missing something but well, this was more a way to vent really. Can't even be bothered by being sarcastic about this dumbass policy anyway.
This is a terrible idea, but I’m somewhat curious about how it could possibly be done. Is any other intellectual property taxed when it “crosses” a border? How?
I don’t even see how it could be called a tariff. It’s a proposed new tax on… something.
Is that a distinction without difference?
If you tariff a physical good at the border is that any different than taxing a virtual good at point of sale?
Republicans don't like to be seen in favor of new taxes, but apparently a tariff is ok because they think Americans don't pay it?
But they don’t think that. It’s just their king really likes the idea.
Yes, the importer is assessed the tariff, whereas the consumer pays sales tax.
I understand there is a mechanical difference, is it meaningful though?
An importer is really just a first order consumer of a foreign product, it doesn’t really matter what they are doing with the product afterwards?
Well they pass the cost increase on to you and then you pay sales tax on it.
Mechanical difference? One could potentially itemize sales tax but I don't know if anyone can write off import tariffs.
Meaningfully though... not really. Though there is commutative difference in that if the tariff fees were printed on a receipt rather than baked into the list price there'd be less of this implicit support of the concept of tariffs that we seem to have.
My question: what about movies that are joint productions between international studios?
Edit: I misunderstood it after reading the first part of the article and seeing discussion among friends as it being a tariff movies made by foreign studios, not just filmed in foreign lands. So, this is even more infuriating to the moviemaking industry than I thought.
So in light of that, I hope the Mouse and other entertainment powerhouses band together to fight back. They seem to have a lot of sway in politics already, and this definitely goes against their personal interests. Especially with the likely retaliatory tariffs.
All the idiocy aside, I'm very interested if this line of thinking continues or if its abandond because it doesn't get him any positive feedback from the echo chamber.
Because it's less impactful if the world retaliates on US manufacturing when there isn't a lot of it. But the US exports a ton of IP and services, entertainment being a big part of it. So what happens if Trump starts messing with real money and the world pushes back on US entertainment. It'd be catastrophic if multiple countries announced 100% tarriff on US entertainment platforms. After the money pit that was the streaming wars. Netflix, Amazon, Disney, HBO all love their price increases, but doubling cost right now is not a smart move.
And in the US, I'm curious why the opposition is harping on the cognitive decline angle when fearmongering would be a far more effective strategy. And the slippery slope is not really a fallacy with this government and worst case will hit a lot of people where it hurts right now. Their escapism. The easiest win: Donald Trump wants to tariff Anime. And K-Dramas/Pop. And telenovelas. And international sport for all the sport betting sites out there. Could lead to another TicToc ban. This is a blank cheque retort.
Absolutely, I hope that the world starts tariffing US services exports - we need more alternatives around the globe and the US enjoys a massive surplus in such exports.
The vindictiveness and stupidity never ends.
I feel like this is really more about a culture war than anything about economics or keeping production within USA. Trump has consistently shown disdain and disgust with other cultures. He wants everything to be American supreme. Big Hollywood productions with scenes filmed in exotic locations also show the audience the world outside their own reference, as something to admire and be interested in. I think it is clear he wants America to close in on itself and that includes removing interest in other cultures and countries, and this is just a part of that.
He also shows disdain for even American culture - at least what we tell ourselves we are. Not what we actually are. But even the good parts of what we actually are.
bold to assume i ever pay for digital video. ive been to a theater once in the last half decade, but cant remember the movie for the life of me. i also dont think ive ever spent any of my own adult money on physical media in my life. its licenses and rips as far as the disk can read.