Former U.S. president Donald Trump has opened a new front in his tariff crusade, pledging a 100 percent duty on every feature film “produced in foreign lands.” The declaration landed late Sunday, 4 May 2025, on his Truth Social feed, wrapped in caps‑locked rhetoric about “saving dying Hollywood” from foreign subsidies and alleged anti‑American “propaganda.” He says the Commerce Department and the United States Trade Representative have already been told to “begin immediately,” but neither agency has released even the barest guidance on how such a levy would be calculated or collected.
That missing fine print looms large. Modern movies aren’t shipped like cars or steel: most arrive digitally, and even a so‑called U.S. blockbuster may have spent half its budget in studios from Vancouver to Wellington. Would the tariff be assessed on production outlays, licensing fees, box‑office grosses or some not‑yet‑defined “import value”? The industry, from studio legal teams to independent distributors, is bracing for a maze of compliance questions that could take months (or years) to untangle.
The proposal lands amid Trump’s broader plan to impose a 10 percent blanket tariff on most imports and a punitive 145 percent rate on Chinese goods. Hollywood executives privately call the film‑specific duty “unworkable,” warning that key overseas markets could retaliate by shutting out American tent‑poles just as severely. California Governor Gavin Newsom has floated a more carrot‑than‑stick response boosting the state’s film‑tax‑credit pool to US $750 million to lure productions home without sparking a trade war. Meanwhile, Australia and New Zealand have signaled they will fight to keep their booming screen sectors open, and European officials are openly discussing a World Trade Organization challenge if the U.S. treats movies as security‑sensitive goods.
Creative‑sector unions, fresh off last year’s strikes, worry the plan may backfire on workers. If foreign partners freeze out U.S. crews in retaliation, thousands of below‑the‑line jobs could disappear. Festivals from Cannes to Toronto are equally anxious: a tariff could raise acquisition costs, thinning the pipeline of non‑U.S. titles that give those events their global flavor. For everyday movie lovers the fallout could be simpler but no less painful, higher ticket prices at specialty cinemas and leaner international catalogues on their favorite streaming platforms.
Whether the tariff ever gets off the drawing board will likely hinge on forthcoming Commerce rule‑making, potential courtroom challenges and November 2026’s mid‑term power calculus. For now, the only certainty is uncertainty. Cinephiles who cherish a steady diet of world cinema may want to dust off that region‑free Blu‑ray player and let their representatives know exactly how they feel about turning movies into the next battleground of global trade.