Donald Trump's film tariff threat is a chance to invest in Australian content

Australia Broadcast Center

09-05-2025

The headline screamed "Don't Fear the Donald", accompanied by an elegant portrait of actor and producer Marta Dusseldorp in a red suit and smiling with a preternaturally reassuring lack of concern. She seemed so unfussed for someone at the centre of a new global trade war that I almost smiled with her.
Dusseldorp was promoting her new film With or Without You and, upon being asked by a Sydney newspaper about the US president's shock announcement of 100 per cent tariffs on any film made outside the US, she rebuffed the clamour of anxiety that had met the news.
"There have been a lot of announcements that come out of America and not all of them come true," she said. "If we stay authentic the world will keep listening."
She's probably right, as is every other Australian and even American filmmaker who greeted the news with horror, then bewilderment then resignation as they sequentially realised the near impossibility of imposing this thought bubble on an industry so internationally linked and interdependent that there's probably not a single Hollywood blockbuster of the last 10 years that can claim to be 100 per cent Made in the USA.
You need only watch any movie to the end of its credits to see the offshore animation units in Korea, the location shoots in Queensland or the generous concessions made by Ontario, Canada to realise that even if American filmmakers want to boost local production, this isn't the way they would want to do it.
Cheaper labour costs, competitive exchange rates and local incentives, such as Australia's 30 per cent location offset have made Hollywood a global industry, and not only to their benefit, but to that of the territories that get to boost their talent and skill base and see hundreds of locals employed.
The idea was the brainchild of actor and Trump-appointed Special Ambassador to Hollywood, Jon Voight, and his manager, and was suggested during a meeting last weekend, which is how policy is now made in the US.
Voight went on to explain and justify an announcement that infuriated his Hollywood colleagues, saying that his proposal included tariffs "only in certain limited circumstances", alongside broader incentives such as tax credits. But I'm not sure that's going to be enough to get back on Tom Cruise's Christmas coconut cake list: there's barely one Mission Impossible that wasn't filmed somewhere outside the US.
I've just spent the week at Screen Forever, the annual conference for makers of screen content in Australia, including the ABC, other broadcasters, independent producers, writers and directors, which was almost completely upended by Donald Trump's news, until the same sangfroid as Dusseldorp's began to steal over the meeting.
The Canadian delegation just shrugged: more disruption from a president who saw bomb-throwing as the opening gambit for any negotiation, and they would know. The Canadian-US border is the most industrially porous one of any joined territory, with roughly 20 per cent of all American films either shot there or using Canadian production services, making it the most popular non-US location for American films.
The Canadians at the conference, including president and chief executive of the Canada Media Fund, Valerie Creighton, know how connected the countries are through the film industry, and the advantages the US players reap. US filmmakers would not be happy.
It's significantly cheaper shooting in Canada than it is in LA or New York, and regions like Ontario have built a film industry out of offering that support. Here in Australia, the Gold Coast, Sydney — and to a lesser extent Victoria — have done the same.
The managing director of the ABC, Hugh Marks, was equally phlegmatic and like Dusseldorp saw a potential upside to the announcement: a chance to concentrate on developing Australian IP and investing in Australian films rather than just being a service-provider for US interests. That of course requires much more local investment — privately and from government — but the return on investment would be exponential.
So perhaps the lesson from this week's Trump calamity is that sovereign interest can work both ways, and if the newly re-elected Albanese government is serious about Australian culture and production, then Trump could be inadvertently showing the way to ensuring it.
This weekend, fashion now at the Met Gala, and fashion then, with the secret life of the potato farmer, Marie Antoinette.
Have a safe and happy weekend and remember: it might not be true in every case, but it's quite possible that for the mum in your life the perfect Mother's Day is a pot of tea, a book (or TV remote) and a locked door, with you on the other side. Allow for the possibility. And play her this too… once she comes out. Go well.
Virginia Trioli is presenter of Creative Types and a former co-host of ABC News Breakfast and Mornings on ABC Radio Melbourne.