Latest news with #AMERICA
Daily Mail
11-08-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Conservatives celebrate 'vibe shift' to MAGA merch at LA Airport
Conservatives are celebrating what they call a 'vibe shift' to the right after surprising images revealed MAGA merchandise for sale inside Los Angeles International Airport - in one of the bluest cities in America. While AMERICA! isn't officially a 'Trump store,' LAX describes the retailer as a store having a 25-year track record specializing in 'local pride, pop culture, and current events' with an emphasis on all things Americana. 'The dynamic, constantly evolving assortment of carefully curated merchandise reflects ever-changing American trends in the market, the local experience, pop culture, politics and current events,' the store description states on LAX's website. The footage quickly went viral social media, with many users praising the display. 'That's so awesome to see,' one wrote. 'MAGA is more than a slogan to those of us who saw the previous administration send billions of dollars to foreign countries while abandoning Americans in Western North Carolina. MAGA just means: America before anyone else. Period.' Another commenter wrote: 'MAGA is the new way we live. We embrace everything that we love about America under the greatest president who has cared about our country in Donald J. Trump. We are taking back California.' A third simply said: 'I never see any representation. This is nice.' 'So in one of the most liberal cities in the country. They have a Trump store, but I'm supposed to believe the election is close,' another added. Despite its reputation as a liberal stronghold, Trump and the Republicans picked up substantial gains in November's general election. Large swathes of California voted for him in areas far away from coastal cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco. Back in January, sources revealed that Trump was convinced the devastating California wildfires would help him turn the traditionally left-wing state Republican. One legal source close to the President told the Mail at the time: 'Donald sees this as an opportunity to turn California Republican red. This is a state which has the fifth largest economy in the world and it should be thriving. Instead, the liberals have destroyed it with their woke policies. Crime is rising, the streets are filthy, homelessness is everywhere. During the last election people in California were already hearing Donald's message and voting for him.' 'It's still one of the most liberal states in the US, but this total screw-up with the wildfires, the fact that the fire hydrants didn't have enough water, the fact that Democrats constantly cut the fire budget, the fact that none of the vital forest and wild land clearance work has been done – all this supports Donald's message that the Dems have screwed it up badly. His message to ordinary Californians is that these wildfires are the final straw. Make the change and vote Republican and watch California come roaring back to prosperity.'
Daily Mail
10-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Conservatives celebrate 'vibe shift' to the right as surprising merchandise pops up in Blue city's main airport
Conservatives are celebrating what they call a 'vibe shift' to the right after surprising images revealed MAGA merchandise for sale inside Los Angeles International Airport - in one of the bluest cities in America. The viral photo shared Friday pictured the inside of a store called AMERICA!, revealing shelves stocked with Trump-branded pens, dolls, mints, masks and other pro-MAGA Donald Trump gear. 'Spotted at LAX,' Elizabeth Barcohana shared on X alongside a photo of a MAGA T-shirt display in the shop. ' California Vibe Shift Right is real.' While AMERICA! isn't officially a 'Trump store,' LAX describes the retailer as a store having a 25-year track record specializing in 'local pride, pop culture, and current events' with an emphasis on all things Americana. 'The dynamic, constantly evolving assortment of carefully curated merchandise reflects ever-changing American trends in the market, the local experience, pop culture, politics and current events,' the store description states on LAX's website. 'By design, each AMERICA! store engages visitors by conveying a regional sense of place, set against a contemporary patriotic backdrop.' Another user, known as unapologeticcrystal, posted a video of the store on TikTok saying: 'You know California has changed when youre at LAX and there's an entire store dedicated to Trump.' The footage quickly went viral social media, with many users praising the display. 'That's so awesome to see,' one wrote. 'MAGA is more than a slogan to those of us who saw the previous administration send billions of dollars to foreign countries while abandoning Americans in Western North Carolina. MAGA just means: America before anyone else. Period.' Another commenter wrote: 'MAGA is the new way we live. We embrace everything that we love about America under the greatest president who has cared about our country in Donald J. Trump. We are taking back California.' A third simply said: 'I never see any representation. This is nice.' 'So in one of the most liberal cities in the country. They have a Trump store, but I'm supposed to believe the election is close,' another added. Despite its reputation as a liberal stronghold, Trump and the Republicans picked up substantial gains in November's general election. Large swathes of California voted for him in areas far away from coastal cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco. Back in January, sources revealed that Trump was convinced the devastating California wildfires would help him turn the traditionally left-wing state Republican. One legal source close to the President told the Mail at the time: 'Donald sees this as an opportunity to turn California Republican red. 'This is a state which has the fifth largest economy in the world and it should be thriving. Instead, the liberals have destroyed it with their woke policies. Crime is rising, the streets are filthy, homelessness is everywhere.' 'During the last election people in California were already hearing Donald's message and voting for him.' Conservatives are celebrating what they call a 'vibe shift' to the right after surprising images emerged showing MAGA merchandise for sale inside Los Angeles International Airport - one of the bluest cities in America 'It's still one of the most liberal states in the US, but this total screw-up with the wildfires, the fact that the fire hydrants didn't have enough water, the fact that Democrats constantly cut the fire budget, the fact that none of the vital forest and wild land clearance work has been done – all this supports Donald's message that the Dems have screwed it up badly.' 'His message to ordinary Californians is that these wildfires are the final straw. Make the change and vote Republican and watch California come roaring back to prosperity.'
West Australian
03-07-2025
- Business
- West Australian
State Government charges ahead with plans to grow WA screen industry despite Trump's tariff threats
Despite threats from US President Donald Trump to impose 100 per cent tariffs on all foreign-made films, which cast doubt on WA's investment in the film sector, the State Government is charging ahead with its plans to grow WA's screen industry and workforce. During Budget estimates on Thursday, the State Government outlined its plans to grow WA's screen industry workforce, a move it admits the US President wouldn't be pleased with. It has allocated $5 million in the 2025–26 Budget for a capacity-building program intended to 'fast-track growth in key sectors of the local screen industry' by helping businesses scale-up through improved infrastructure and services. Last month's Budget also increased the rebate on WA post-production, digital and visual effects expenditure to a flat 20 per cent for projects with budgets of more than $100,000. Previously, the incentive was a 20 per cent rebate on qualifying post-production expenditure for the first $500,000, and 10 per cent thereafter. The rebate is aimed at bringing more film productions to WA as part of the $20 million WA Production Attraction Incentive Fund, which was first announced in 2021. 'This is the package that I joke, perhaps people don't want to talk too much to President Trump about, because they're quite generous,' Minister for Creative Industries Simone McGurk said on Thursday. Although posts in early May warned of the film tariffs, and President Trump said he authorised the US Commerce Department to act because America's film industry was dying a 'very fast death', no official action has occurred so far. '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,' Mr Trump said in a Truth Social post. 'This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat . . . it is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda.' 'WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!' The tariffs would be a major plot twist for the State Government, given a $290m film studio is currently under construction in Malaga and due to open next year. Despite the funding commitments, the State Government won't mandate local content requirements. Rather, it will focus on creating opportunities for WA workers and businesses through incentives. 'While there won't be a mandated component for local content, actually making sure that there are opportunities for West Australians and West Australian companies is very much at the core of the screen industry strategy,' Ms McGurk said. Ms McGurk said the Government was committed to supporting and creating a wide range of job opportunities across the film industry. 'We will be committing to a published plan coming out before the end of the calendar year, in relation to all of the different people working directly in the production of film, but also . . . film-adjacent occupations,' she said. '(That) could be anything from writing, script development, production, it could be in set design, it could be in set construction, it could be in make-up, it could be in costumes.'
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Director Richard Linklater defiantly says Trump film tariffs are ‘not gonna happen'
Boyhood director Richard Linklater isn't putting much stock in President Donald Trump's film tariff threat. The Texas-born filmmaker was asked about the president's plan at Cannes Film Festival on Sunday, where he is debuting his new movie, Nouvelle Vague. 'The tariff thing, that's not gonna happen right? That guy changes his mind like 50 times in one day,' Linklater said of Trump. 'It's the one export industry in the U.S., it would be kind of dumb to… Whatever, we don't have to talk about that.' On whether it has become more expensive to make films in the U.S., Linklater added: 'I think the true indie film, the no-budget film, has cost the same for the last 60 years. It's always about how much you have, so that doesn't change much.' Earlier this month, President Trump revealed he was starting the process of putting in place 100 percent tariffs on any movie made outside of the U.S. 'The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,' Trump claimed on Truth Social. '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.' The president argued that it was an issue of national security and propaganda. 'This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,' he said. 'It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!' 'Therefore, 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,' he added. 'WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!' It remains unclear how such a tariff would work and whether it would be applied only to theatrical releases or also include streaming, as well as how it would differentiate between movies and TV shows. Movie producers have more often chosen to film in low-cost production locations as Hollywood blockbusters get more and more expensive. One union said Trump's tariffs could be a 'knock-out blow' to the industry, with many filmmakers having left the U.S. for countries such as the U.K. and Canada as they try to lower production costs. The U.K. Media Union Bectu issued the warning, with boss Philippa Childs telling the BBC: 'The government must move swiftly to defend this vital sector, and support the freelancers who power it, as a matter of essential national economic interest.' Before starting his second term, Trump appointed three actors, Mel Gibson, Jon Voight, and Sylvester Stallone, to serve as 'special envoys' to Hollywood, which he said was a "great but very troubled place.' But it remains unclear what they have achieved so far. "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!' he wrote at the time. Nouvelle Vague. chronicles the making of Jean-Luc Godard's debut 1960 classic Breathless, which starred Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo as star-crossed lovers in Paris. Zoey Deutch, who plays Seberg in the film, said at the Cannes press conference that 'it would be nice to make more movies in Los Angeles.' 'The history and the studios and the culture and the crews, it would be so beautiful,' she said. 'I just finished doing a movie there and it was magical in the same way that Paris is magical and has this history. I would love for there to be more movies in Los Angeles.' Linklater agreed, adding that he 'really admires' the French for 'taking care' of their film industry. 'They make sure it's healthy and they nurture it and they help it. The government, everyone is all in,' he said. 'From production to distribution, they care. And our country, the U.S., could use a little bit of that.'
Business Mayor
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Mayor
Ban this foreign filth! Can cinema really threaten national security?
A s always with pronouncements by President Trump, once you had peeled away the xenophobia, removed the stew of resentment, ignored the sheer idiocy and asterisked the possible illegality, there was a small kernel of truth to his posting on Truth Social last Sunday. 'The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,' he wrote, pointing to the nefarious tax breaks other countries gave film-makers as 'a National Security threat' and proposing an 100% tariff on films made oversees. 'It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA AGAIN!' How would a 100% tariff on films made oversees work? Just movies shot overseas? What about movies set overseas? And who would pay? How do you impose tariffs on goods without a port of entry? 'Commerce is figuring it out,' said a White House official. In fact, movies are listed as an exception to presidential authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president authority to address national security threats, so it is likely the lawyers would end up figuring it out, if Trump's plan went ahead. But, many executives in Hollywood are quietly nodding agreement. It is true that Los Angeles has seen feature movie shoot days plummet from 3,901 in 2017 to just 2,403 in 2024, a 38% drop. Many major franchises such as Avatar and Mission: Impossible are shot mostly overseas, where the lure of lucrative tax breaks offset such minor inconveniences as the incursion of some Derbyshire sheep into one of Tom Cruise's paragliding set-pieces. Clear the sheep and go again … Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Photograph: Credit: Paramount Pictures/Paramount Pictures/Allstar Whether Ethan Hunt's jaunts around the Lake District represent a legitimate national security threat – as opposed to, say, including sensitive war plans in a group chat – is best left to historians. Trump's vision of Maga cinema is much like his vision of Maga America: an attempt to turn back the clock to the 1950s, when movies were still shot on a Hollywood backlot, cinema attendance was at its peak and the US flooded countries, whose previously quota-restricted film industries had been devastated by war, with American films, as part of the Marshall plan. 'What we are in fact attempting to do in Europe is to create a Marshall plan of ideas,' wrote political journalist Walter Lippmann in The Cold War: A Study in US Foreign Policy (1947). 'We have created a new Athens, a celluloid Athens, in which films and ideas about freedom, democracy, and self-determination are broadcast to all the world.' Read More Disney needs new ideas from its cast of in-activist investors As usual, Trump is playing his victor-as-victim card. We're used to hearing protectionist cries from smaller countries protesting America's cinematic hegemony – not the other way around. 'We will become a cultural colony of the United States if this goes on,' said director René Clair after France signed the Blum-Byrnes agreement in 1946, which cleared some of France's war debt in return for opening up French cinemas to American films. In 1993, when Spielberg's Jurassic Park stormed into 450 cinemas – a quarter of the country's 1,800 total – French culture minister Jacques Toubon declared the movie 'a threat to French national identity' and claimed that it was every Frenchman's 'patriotic duty' to, instead, see Germinal, an adaptation of Émile Zola's novel about the 19th-century coalminers starring Gérard Depardieu. Arriving as the general agreement on tariffs and trade talks got under way, Jurassic Park became a political football with which 'to confront, with renewed muscle, the yankosaurs who menace our country' as Libération put it. 'We cannot allow the Americans to treat us in the way they dealt with the redskins,' director Bertrand Tavernier told the European parliament. A political football … Joseph Mazzello, Laura Dern and Sam Neill in Jurassic Park. Photograph: Universal/Allstar Dressing up soft power incursions as hard power threats may, at times, seem irresistible, but there's a wide gulf between 'perceived national security threats' and 'actual national security threats'. Trump's proposal to make American films great again would lump the US together with such isolationist, authoritarian states as China and Iran. When Avatar proved wildly popular to Chinese audiences in 2010, it was pulled early from theatres to make room for a biopic of Confucius, after officials fretted its themes of resistance to imperialism could stoke unrest. In Iran, last month, Maryam Moghaddam and Behtash Sanaeeha, the directors of the gentle romance My Favourite Cake, whose heroine is shown without a headscarf, were sentenced to 14 months in prison on charges of 'spreading lies with the intention of disturbing public opinion'. The national security apparatus of the state makes for a notoriously poor film critic. When Soviet authorities allowed John Ford's adaptation of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1940) into cinemas on the basis that it showed the suffering of a poor American farming family during the Great Depression, one audience member reportedly remarked: 'They may have been poor, but at least they had a truck.' It's important to remember that, though France attempted to restage the Battle of Little Bighorn over the influx of Hollywood movies in 1946, they lost and the result was the French New Wave, as directors like Truffaut, Godard, Rivette and Chabrol played catchup with the sudden glut of American movies, and fashioned their own homegrown counterpoint. 'What switched me to films was the flood of American pictures into Paris after the Liberation,' said Truffaut who, between 1946 and 1956, watched more than 3,000 films by the likes of Welles, Hitchcock and Ford, that had gathered dust during the Nazi occupation. Movies have always been an international medium and market, and are only getting more so. Jurassic Park may have smushed Germinal at the box office – $1bn to $6m – but 1993 marked another important watershed, as Hollywood's foreign revenue outstripped domestic revenue for the first time in its history. Today, international markets account for more than 70% of Hollywood's box office revenue. Ironically, Hollywood is one of the few places where the US does not see one of Trump's dreaded trade deficits. According to the Motion Picture Association, the industry enjoys a $15.3bn trade surplus, and with that surplus has come an undeniable softening of the amount of American flag-waving we see on screen. A rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner was removed from Toy Story 2. Bohemian Rhapsody had some of its queerness toned down for the Chinese market. Producers of Top Gun: Maverick removed Taiwan's flag from Maverick's bomber jacket, to appease China's censors, but, after one of the film's Chinese backers, Tencent, pulled out, it was put back, at least for the version that showed in Taiwan. 'Mercilessly destroy anyone' … James Franco and Seth Rogen in The Interview. Photograph: Ed Araquel/AP You can't enjoy cinematic dominance over other countries and brandish insensitivity to their respective cultures. Hence the pusillanimity that overcame Sony Pictures, after Seth Rogen and James Franco's 2014 comedy The Interview, about two bumbling journalists who end up involved in a CIA plot to kill Kim Jong-un, precipitated a threat from the North Korean government to 'mercilessly destroy anyone who dares hurt or attack the supreme leadership of the country even a bit'. After Sony Pictures' computers were hacked, and sensitive emails between its executives dumped online, Sony backed down and withdrew the film from release, while another North Korea-set comedy, Pyongyang, about an American accused of spying in the country, was quietly ditched by its production company, New Regency. The film's star, Steve Carell, tweeted that it was a 'sad day for creative expression'. Read More Craft Media appoints Media Week Podcast host head of planning Is this what Trump means by 'messaging and propaganda'? Given his fondness for Kim Jong-un and his dislike of queerness, probably not, but the idea of secret messaging that American films are forced to carry if they shoot overseas would appear to be another of Trump's bogeymen. 'I've produced or overseen hundreds of movies that were shot overseas, even built studios in Australia and Mexico for that purpose,' responded Bill Mechanic, CEO of Pandemonium Films and the executive who oversaw the shoot of James Cameron's Titanic in Mexico and Mel Gibson's Hacksaw Ridge in Australia. 'Other than China, which offered rigid co-production terms, no foreign government has ever even commented on any political content in any of those movies. None has ever asked for any changes, and never proposed a single idea.' James Cameron's Titanic would have sunk without trace with the proposed tariff. Photograph: 20TH CENTURY FOX/Allstar Neither Titanic nor Hacksaw Ridge, needless to say, would have survived Trump's proposed tariffs. It's hard to see how so blunt a stick as 100% tariffs would serve to roll back the irreversible forces of globalisation. The way to get production back into the US is incentivise film-makers with tax breaks, not threaten them with tariffs. The most likely effect of tariffs would be to choke what little life remains in the already embattled business of theatrical distribution, annihilate the indie sector, render most low- to mid-budget productions unfinanceable and even dent the big blockbusters such as Mission: Impossible, as studios recalibrate their profit margins. It would result in fewer movies being made in the US, not more. But it's doubtful whether helping Hollywood was indeed the aim. A believer in free markets, except when he isn't, Trump has already started to walk back his ludicrous proposal, with the White House saying that 'no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made'. Hollywood is not going back to the All-American 1950s anytime soon. The 'celluloid Athens' proclaimed by Walter Lippmann is now more like a celluloid Constantinople – increasingly international, plural, connected. 'The world is listening,' ran the motto of George Lucas's THX Dolby system. Yes, but the world is also speaking now. It's Hollywood's turn to listen.
