President Donald Trump announced Sunday he has directed the Department of Commerce and the U.S. Trade Representative to impose a 100% tariff on all films "produced in Foreign Lands," calling the global expansion of non-U.S. cinema a "National Security threat" and an effort of "messaging and propaganda."
The statement, posted on Trump's Truth Social platform, follows a broader trend in his 2024 campaign of aggressive trade policy and protectionist rhetoric aimed at restoring domestic industries. "Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated," Trump wrote. "Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States."
Trump claimed the film industry is in "a very fast death," blaming foreign governments for subsidizing rival productions. "If they are not willing to make a movie inside the United States, we should have a tariff on movies that come in," he told reporters later on Sunday. He did not provide specifics on how the tariffs would be calculated or whether they would affect multinational productions that include U.S. studios or actors but are filmed abroad.
The move comes amid rising concerns over the future of Hollywood, which has been battling a slow post-pandemic recovery. Global box office revenue reached approximately $30 billion in 2024, according to Gower Street Analytics, down about 7% from 2023 and still roughly 20% below pre-COVID levels.
Trump's latest comments follow his January appointment of actors Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, and Jon Voight as "special ambassadors" to help rejuvenate the American film industry. At the time, he described them as "my eyes and ears" in building a "Golden Age of Hollywood."
The proposed tariffs could inflame tensions with key international markets. In April, China's Film Administration reduced the quota of U.S. movies permitted in Chinese cinemas in response to the tariff talk. "The wrong action of the US government to abuse tariffs on China will inevitably further reduce the domestic audience's favourability towards American films," the agency said in an April 10 statement.
China, the second-largest film market after the United States, has increasingly favored domestic productions in recent years. U.S. studios such as Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., and Paramount Global-already under financial pressure from pandemic-era losses and dual Hollywood strikes in 2023-could see international revenue further diminished.
