Trump's movie tariff is nuts, but it's already having an effect here

Irish Times

12-05-2025

The international film and TV industry emitted a collective groan at the news last week that Donald Trump had turned his attention towards it. 'WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!', the US president posted in trademark all-caps, telling Truth Social followers that the US film industry was experiencing a 'very fast death' because of the incentives offered by other countries to entice film-makers to their shores.
'This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,' he added. 'It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda.'
As my colleague Donald Clarke pointed out, even by the standards of the current White House, this pronouncement was bizarre. Few domestic film and TV markets are as monocultural as the United States. Non-American movies barely figure in annual the US box office returns.
The same is true of streaming, cable and network TV. And the US still maintains a dominant position in global distribution and exhibition, a hegemony reinforced by the rise of streamers like Netflix, Prime, Apple+ and Disney+.
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Trump's complaints about the cultural or – even more tendentiously – security impact of this imaginary reverse cultural invasion were therefore greeted with polite bemusement by Irish industry figures like Ed Guiney and David Puttnam.
Perhaps mindful of having their comments Googled the next time they attempt to clear US Immigration, neither spelt out the obvious truth: the proposal from Trump and US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick to slap a 100 per cent tariff on non-American films in order to protect the country against a non-existent wave of anti-US propaganda is absolutely nuts.
It's easy to scoff at the president's cack-handed threats. But at a time when the tide is turning for globalisation and international free trade, they are already having areal consequences
Marginally more plausible is the idea that the protectionist agenda of reshoring American jobs lost to globalisation should be expanded from the auto-workers of Michigan to the grips and boom operators of southern California.
Studio backlots, most of which have been converted to tourist attractions these days, would reverberate once more to shouts of 'action' and the sound of clapperboards as Trump and his three industry 'ambassadors', Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight, do whatever is required to make Hollywood great again.
What would that involve? It is true that the film industry in Los Angeles has been faltering; by some measures production activity is down 40 per cent since the pre-Covid era. And yes, one contributory factor is aggressive competition.
Much of that comes not from abroad but from other US states like Georgia and North Carolina, which offer cheaper labour than heavily unionised California and which often sweeten the deal further with their own tax breaks.
The same policies have been followed for years by America's newfound enemies to the north in Canada. It's been a commonplace since the 1980s that many apparently US-set films and TV dramas have substituted the streets of Vancouver and Toronto for those of San Francisco and New York.
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And the end of the Cold War opened up new possibilities in Europe for cost-conscious producers. Why shoot your Western zombie flick in Wyoming when you can do it for half the price in Romania?
Ireland, like many other countries, has been attempting to play this game for 40 years or more with varying levels of success via its Section 451 incentive.
That has gone through multiple versions, with local producers always pushing for better terms. But the biggest player in the international film servicing game is the UK, location of choice for many of Hollywood's blockbuster franchises.
A ring of well-equipped studios and post-production facilities on the fringes of London are served by thousands of skilled technicians and bolstered by attractive tax arrangements.
At a time of economic despondency, the British movie industry has been a beacon of light, although the thorny question remains of whether the balance right between being a mere service industry for big studios and having a thriving, creative local industry.
This week, the movers and shakers of the international film world are gathering in Cannes for the world's premier film festival. Media attention will focus on the red-carpet premieres and the competition for the Palme d'Or, but the real business will be conducted away from the cameras.
Shoot your exterior scenes in Dublin, your interiors in Berlin, do your post-production in Brisbane and then sell the finished product to Apple after a successful premiere at next year's Toronto film festival.
Deals of bewildering complexity will be negotiated, combining presale agreements, direct government subsidies, broadcast rights, private equity investment and an array of tax breaks linked to what gets spent where.
Shoot your exterior scenes in Dublin, your interiors in Berlin, do your post-production in Brisbane and then sell the finished product to Apple after a successful premiere at next year's Toronto film festival.
Few industries are as globalised as film and television. That's why The Apprentice, an uncomplimentary portrait of the rise of a brash young property developer named Donald J Trump in 1980s New York was also included in the Best Irish Film category at the most recent Irish Film and Television Academy awards (maybe that was the foreign propaganda Trump was talking about).
It's easy to scoff at the president's cack-handed threats. But at a time when the tide is turning for globalisation and international free trade, they are already having areal consequences.
A Trump executive order in February threatening retaliation against 'foreign legal regimes' for requiring 'American streaming services to fund local productions,' was followed by Minister for Arts Patrick O'Donovan's decision not to accept advice from Coimisiún na Meán to implement such a 'Netflix levy' here.
Last week, in the wake of Trump's Make Movies Great Again post, a scheduled launch by O'Donovan and Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers of enhancements to Section 451 that had been announced in Budget 2025 was deferred.
Producers have been told the new arrangements will be backdated when they are introduced at the end of this month, but it appears last week was suddenly deemed the wrong time for the announcement. As any good screenwriter will tell you, there's no such thing as a coincidence.