Trump Calls for 100% Tariff on Foreign Movies

Movies are a new focal point for the Trump administration’s campaign to impose tariffs across a wide range of industries, from tech to textiles and beyond. 

In a Sunday night social media post, President Donald Trump said the US movie industry “is DYING a very fast death.” He wrote that he’s authorizing a 100% tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick quoted the president and responded, “We’re on it.”

Trump’s latest tariff call to action raises a lot of questions about what movies, and potentially TV shows, will be affected and whether the tariffs would affect future releases or films that are already in the market and on streaming services. One example of that is the wildly successful The Minecraft Movie, which was mostly shot in New Zealand. Film studios often shoot overseas with the help of incentives from countries. The tariffs almost certainly would affect foreign-made films such as the Oscar-winning animated film Flow from Latvia. 

As pointed out by The Hollywood Reporter and others, it’s unclear how streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu would be affected, such as the potential impact on subscriber fees and the kinds of content that those services offer. Among the top hits made overseas on Netflix alone are Squid Game and The Crown.