By Jason Bailey / Bloomberg Opinion
Donald Trump let the world know last weekend that movies have become another one of his tariff targets.
“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he posted on his social media platform. “Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States … This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! … WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”
To get the “credit where due” piece of this out of the way: As with the administration’s overall tariff policy, there is in fact a genuine economic issue to consider here. Big-budget studio blockbusters are taking advantage of tax breaks, cheaper labor and other incentives to shoot in London, New Zealand and Canada (among others). Mid- and low-budget genre films are frequently shot in Eastern European countries such as Romania and Bulgaria for the same reasons. Animation and post-production work (such as editing and special effects) are also typically farmed out overseas.
But a broad and sweeping “solution” like this amounts to using a chain saw for a job that requires a scalpel; a familiar theme within this administration.
How would one even impose a tariff on “movies”? This is an art form. It’s not like a car or a television, where you purchase the individual parts and assemble them into a product that comes over in a shipping container. Movies are comprised of ideas brought to life by the labor and talent of skilled professionals, and more often than not these days, they’re digitally transmitted; not contained in a physical form. Does he want to tariff ticket prices? Does he propose making Blu-rays for foreign films twice as expensive? What about streaming services, which typically fill out their catalogs with international programming?
More importantly, as economics professor Justin Wolfers noted on Bluesky, the U.S. exports far more films and television shows than it imports. Most Hollywood blockbusters at least match, if not exceed, their domestic grosses with foreign ticket sales. So, if typically lucrative markets like China, the United Kingdom, Japan and Australia choose to impose retaliatory tariffs on American movies, well, that would be the very definition of, to borrow Trump’s words, a “very fast death” for the “movie industry in America.” China, for its part, threatened to do just that nearly a month ago when Trump wasn’t even talking about movies yet.
But we’re not just talking about a financial loss. Art, in whatever medium, can offer different perspectives and unite communities. Movies are particularly adept at exploring complex themes in a relatively tight time-frame; they are, and always have been, a universal language for the exchange of our individual stories, histories and ideas.
The U.S. has benefited greatly from this trade; so much so that Hollywood is considered one of the country’s soft powers. And it’s not a one-way street. Foreign films allow more members of our melting pot to see themselves onscreen; they also inspire domestic filmmakers, and contribute to the growth of the art.
There are other, less high-minded benefits to boot. The South Korean hit “Parasite,” for example, grossed $50 million-plus in the U.S., with movie-goers not only spending money on tickets, but popcorn, candy and drinks, boosting theaters’ bottom lines.
The logistics of a tariff on movies, it seems, have not been well thought out; as if on schedule, the White House has already issued a statement all but walking back the president’s jeremiad. But the message cannot be walked back.
As with the administration’s aggressive DEI rollbacks and targeted whitewashing of American history, the announcement of this movie tariff is indicative of the MAGA movement’s ongoing effort to reshape American life and culture. What’s left behind is a cultural vacuum, which prompts a simple question: What will fill it?
Trump, of course, has ideas. I’m reminded of 2019 when he devoted time at one of his re-election rallies to address the then-recent Oscar sweep by “Parasite.”
“The winner is … a movie from South Korea! What the hell was that all about?” he said. “We got enough problems with South Korea with trade. On top of that, they give them best movie of the year? Was it good? I don’t know. Let’s get ‘Gone With the Wind.’ Can we get ‘Gone With the Wind’ back, please?”
The most chilling words in his social post last weekend, at least for students of history, are the ones that, at first, read as a sidebar: his contention that, in addition to the economic impact of overseas production, “other Nations” are using movies to carry their own nefarious “messaging and propaganda.”This was the same accusation lobbed at left-leaning screenwriters and directors during the dark days of the Hollywood blacklist and the investigations of the House Un-American Activities Committee. During that time, creativity was stifled and industry professionals were locked out of jobs and opportunities.
There’s little reason to believe that the Trump administration — in the name of its all-purpose interest in “national security” — won’t follow the same path. Some may think that’s hyperbole or paranoia. Perhaps. But if we’ve learned one thing over the last decade, it’s that we underestimate Trump, those he’s placed in power and the extremity of their views and their goals, at our own peril.
Jason Bailey is a film critic and historian whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Vulture, the Playlist, Slate and Rolling Stone. He is the author, most recently, of “Fun City Cinema: New York City and the Movies That Made It.”
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