Featured Image Credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, Film and TV, China, Politics
Britt Jones
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, Film and TV, China, Politics
And so, the tariff war picks up again… but this time an unlikely industry is being thrown into the mix which could see US citizens struggle if they’re into a niche genre.
Donald Trump has been raising tariffs like nobody’s business, and it seems he’s not about to stop.
After engaging in a heated debate with China which has led to a staggering 145 percent tariff, it looks like things are continuing on a path where anything imported from China will cost far too much to even consider buying.
China then announced it was raising tariffs on the US from 84 percent to 125 percent, which then saw the POTUS sign an executive order 'launching an investigation into the national security risks posed by US reliance on imported processed critical minerals and their derivative products'.
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Anyway, while that’s been happening and has taken up a lot of attention, there’s another industry that’s being slapped with high tariffs too.
According to Trump, this is a ‘dying’ industry that’s in dire need of saving, as he claimed in a Truth Social post that other nations have apparently coordinated an 'attack' against it - making it a 'national security threat'.
So, what is this industry that is apparently failing?
The movie industry.
That’s right. The industry that casts Hollywood actors to play our favorite roles in our favorite films is said to be dying.
According to the president, he’s planning to slap movies made in foreign countries with 100 percent tariffs to protect US-made projects.
Because of how dire the situation is, he shared that he is authorising the US Department of Commerce and the Trade Representative to impose the levy so that the US can begin to make more movies.
Trump wrote: “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated.”
Calling it a ‘concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat’, Trump went on to claim that there is also ‘propaganda’ within the movies' messaging.
So, to tackle this ‘threat’, he is ‘authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands’.
Ending his post, he stated: “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”
Even though Trump said that he would be imposing tariffs on foreign films coming into the US, he did not say whether he would also impose tariffs on American production companies producing films abroad.
It also didn’t explore whether this would affect Netflix, which produces films all over the world, or the cinema industry, which shows films in the US and in Europe and beyond.
But it seems as though the film industry has been in his sights since the beginning of his second term after he appointed film stars Jon Voight, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone to be ambassadors with the task of promoting business opportunities in Hollywood.
“They will serve as Special Envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries, BACK - BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!” Trump shared online at the time.
China said it was reducing the number of American films allowed into the country last month in retaliation to the tariffs imposed.
“The wrong action of the US government to abuse tariffs on China will inevitably further reduce the domestic audience's favorability towards American films,” the China Film Administration said.
“We will follow the market rules, respect the audience's choice, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported.”