White House says “No final decisions” regarding Trump’s plan to enact a 100% tariff on movies shot outside the U.S.

Update: Shortly after last night’s stunning announcement that President Donald Trump plans to “Make Hollywood Great Again” by imposing a 100% tariff on films shot outside the United States, the White House is lightly pumping the brakes with an update.

“Although no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made, the Administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive to safeguard our country’s national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again,” White House spokesman Kush Desai tells The Hollywood Reporter.

The statement suggests that more time is needed to determine what Hollywood tariffs would look like and how they would be implemented. Placing a tariff on Hollywood filmmaking would be complicated, given the industry’s intricacies and how power, production costs, and distribution are divided among participating parties.

According to Donald Trump, “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” and a 100% tariff could help resolve the issue. Trump’s announcement about tariffs has already caused chaos within the industry, with many confused about how tariffs could benefit the filmmaking process and who ultimately pays for those added costs to an already expensive endeavor.

Original Article: U.S. President Donald Trump stated this past week that he plans to enforce a 100% tariff on any movies made outside of the country, a move that could do far more damage than the industry can handle now.

Posting on his own social media platform, Trump wrote of his plan, “I am 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…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.”

No doubt, as with many tariffs, this move on movies from Trump will prove to hurt economies worldwide. In her own reaction to the decision, Philippa Childs, head of the Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union, cited that the United Kingdom is still trying to recover from the effects of the pandemic on the film industry. “The UK is a world leader in film and TV production, employing thousands of talented workers, and this is a key growth sector in the government’s industrial strategy. These tariffs, coming after Covid and the recent slowdown, could deal a knock-out blow to an industry that is only just recovering and will be really worrying news for tens of thousands of skilled freelancers who make films in the UK.”

According to research, half of the movies that had a budget of over $40 million had production outside of the U.S. It might be worth noting that Mel Gibson – who Trump made one of his ambassadors to Hollywood – plans to shoot The Passion of the Christ 2 next year; considering the first was made primarily in Italy, it’s hard to imagine Gibson being swayed to shoot it in Burbank…

Donald Trump has a peculiar history with the movie industry, a lot of which comes down to his ego. For starters, there’s the clause he allegedly had that if any production used his property, he would have to be given a cameo – which is why he appears in Home Alone 2. He has also gone to verbal war with many of his critics inside of Hollywood, recently calling George Clooney a “second-rate actor,” which is a hell of a thing to label someone with multiple Oscars and a possible Tony on the horizon…

What do you make of Trump’s tariffs on any foreign-shot movies? Do you see this being carried through or will he reverse it?

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