United States President Donald Trump has threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on foreign films, calling them a “National Security threat” in a social media post on Sunday.
With details sparse, Trump’s threat has left many questions lingering. We unpack what his threat, if enforced, could mean; which film industries might take a hit; how his tariff targets might retaliate and how this would affect ticket prices.
What did Trump announce?
“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. He added that other countries are offering “all sorts of incentives” to drive filmmakers and studios away from the US.
“This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,” Trump wrote.
Trump also described foreign films as “messaging and propaganda”.
He concluded his post saying he was authorising the Department of Commerce and the US Trade Representative “to immediately begin the process” of imposing a 100 percent tariff on films coming into the US which are “produced in Foreign Lands”.
On Monday, the White House appeared to take a step back. “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 spokesperson Kush Desai said.
What counts as a foreign film?
That’s one of the many questions that have arisen from Trump’s threat.
As with most things, films in a globalised world rarely rely on resources from just one country: Hollywood movies, for instance, might have an American financial backer but could be shot in other countries, with actors and crew from different parts of the world.
For instance, one of 2024’s top-grossing Hollywood films, Wicked, was filmed in Sky Studios Elstree in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, in the United Kingdom.
Parts of Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, released in 2023, were filmed in Warner Brothers’ studios in Leavesden, Hertfordshire in the UK. Barbie’s California-esque Dreamhouse was actually built in a UK studio. During filming, Barbie’s production generated more than 80 million pounds ($106m) for the UK economy, creating jobs and supporting local businesses.
Trading bright pink pool slides for candy-churning Rube Goldberg machines, the same studio morphed into Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in Paul King’s Wonka, released later that year.
Many US movies last year were also filmed partly or completely in Australia, including The Fall Guy, a comedy action film starring Ryan Gosling, and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Australia’s federal government offers incentives for big film projects in Australia, including a 30 percent rebate under the location offset scheme. New Zealand offers similar tax break incentives.
Released in the same year, US Gothic horror film Nosferatu was filmed in Prague, Czech Republic. US movies have also been filmed in New Zealand, Spain and Germany, among other countries.
On the flip side, many non-US films are shot at least partly in the US. Successful Bollywood movies of the past two decades have used the Brooklyn Bridge, Miami’s beaches and Chicago’s neighbourhoods as backdrops for plots that have ranged from romantic comedies to robberies – adding to the attraction of US cities for Indian tourists. It’s unclear whether such films – which bring revenue to the US – would classify as “foreign” films.
How much do foreign films rely on the US as a market?
Indian films generate significant revenue from markets abroad. The 2016 film, Dangal, a biopic of India’s famous wrestling sisters, Geeta Phogat and Babita Phogat, generated about $12.4m from the US and Canada, according to website Box Office India.
Indian films gross about $100m at the US box office, Shibasish Sarkar, president of the Producers Guild of India, told the Press Trust of India (PTI) on Monday. “The diaspora market, which is price-sensitive, became a revenue source for Indian films,” filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri told PTI. Sarkar and Agnihotri speculated that ticket prices would increase if the tariffs were applied. “I don’t think anybody will watch them in theatres, especially when the films will be available on Netflix, Amazon, etc,” Agnihotri said.
The US is home to 5.4 million people of Indian origin, the largest Indian diaspora population in the world.
But it isn’t just Indian films that earn significantly in the US. Paddington in Peru, the 2024 film that’s part of the UK franchise revolving around Paddington, the anthropomorphic bear, earned more than $45m in the US.
Films from South Korea also fare well in US markets. In April this year, animated film The King of Kings, directed by Seong Ho Jang, earned $54.7m at the box office, surpassing Bong Joon-ho’s 2019 film Academy Award-winning Parasite, which generated $53.8m in the US. These are the top-earning South Korean films in the US. But The King of the Kings is an English-language film, starring big Hollywood names such as Oscar Isaac. Parasite is a Korean-language film.
On the other hand, films from countries like China are barely reliant on US viewership – with language still a barrier they haven’t been able to overcome.
In February this year, Chinese animated film Ne Zha 2 became the highest-grossing animated film in history, making $1.9bn from nearly 80,000 screens four weeks after its release, according to Chinese ticketing platform Maoyan. More than 99 percent of the Mandarin-language film’s box office income came from mainland China. Yolo, the Chinese comedy superhit from 2024, earned only $2m in the US despite being the 14th highest-grossing film globally, according to IMDb’s Box Office Mojo.
How have other countries reacted to Trump’s threat?
Australian home affairs minister and minister for the arts, Tony Burke, responded to Trump’s threat: “Nobody should be under any doubt that we will be standing up unequivocally for the rights of the Australian screen industry.”
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said his government was awaiting further details on the tariffs. “We’ll have to see the detail of what actually ultimately emerges. But we’ll be obviously a great advocate, great champion of that sector and that industry,” he said.
Philippa Childs, the head of UK media and entertainment union Bectu, called on her government to protect its film industry.
“These tariffs, coming after COVID and the recent slowdown, could deal a knock-out blow to an industry that is only just recovering,” Childs said.
How has the US reacted?
US media stocks fell on Monday in the aftermath of Trump’s announcement. The shares for streaming giant Netflix fell by 2.5 percent in early trading, while Disney, Warner Brothers and Comcast also declined between 0.7 and 1.7 percent.
“There is too much uncertainty, and this latest move raises more questions than answers,” PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore told the Reuters news agency. “It doesn’t feel like something that will happen in the short term as everyone will be grappling to understand the whole process. Inevitably costs will be passed on to consumers.”
Is Hollywood ‘dying’ as Trump said?
In recent years, Hollywood has faced several setbacks, among them the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, Hollywood studios grossed about $30bn globally, down by about 7 percent from 2023, according to Gower Street Analytics. Despite last year’s performance being better in terms of revenue than 2020, 2021 and 2022, it was still about 20 percent below the pre-pandemic average.
In 2023, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) – trade unions representing Hollywood writers and performers – went on strike, demanding better working conditions and stronger protection against AI use. This led to the closure of some studios while others scaled back staff.
In January this year, wildfires ravaged Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood. Several filming locations for television and movie productions in southern California were damaged or destroyed. Many actors also lost their homes to the fire.
Many in the US film and television industry have rallied to bring production back to Hollywood, urging California legislators and the state’s Governor Gavin Newsom to enact measures such as raising tax incentives to bring this to effect. The argument is that Hollywood is full of middle-class workers, gig workers and local businesses hit by a decline in production.
“If we don’t stop the bleeding, then Los Angeles is at risk of becoming Detroit,” said filmmaker Sarah Adina Smith, an organiser of the “Stay in LA” campaign that calls for productions to remain in the city, Reuters reported in April.
