What does Donald Trump’s insane tariff on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’ actually mean?

His latest target is the movie industry. In a late Sunday post on Truth Social, Trump announced that it was “DYING a very fast death” and then revealed his plans for full euthanasia. He explained that other countries offer “incentives” to make movies there, which he believes is a “national security threat” and “propaganda”. As such, he will “immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”

Trump later expanded on his comments in an interview with C-SPAN, apparently blaming Governor Gavin Newsom for the situation:

“What they’ve done is other nations have been stealing the movies, the moviemaking capabilities from the United States. I’ve done some very strong research over the past week, and we’re making very few movies now. Hollywood is being destroyed. Now, you have a … grossly incompetent governor that allowed that to happen, so I’m not just blaming other nations, but other nations have stolen our movie industry. If they’re not willing to make a movie inside the United States, then we should have a tariff on movies that come in. And not only that, governments are actually giving big money. They’re ing them financially. That’s sort of a threat to our country in a sense.”

So, if this is going to happen, what the heck does it mean and how would it work? The situation is unclear even to the studios, with Variety reporting that in the aftermath of the post, blindsided studio executives immediately made emergency calls to figure out what they’re going to do next.

If you’re extremely optimistic, Trump simply might be targeting movies produced in other countries. After all, he was famously disdainful of the South Korean movie Parasite winning the Best Picture Oscar in 2020. If that were the case would limit the damage to Hollywood studios, but would cripple the indie industry and effectively block distribution of anime movies in the United States.

Unfortunately, this (already awful) best-case scenario doesn’t appear to be the case, as Trump specifically mentioned other countries offering “incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States”, indicating he’s specifically going after studios shooting in foreign locations.

This means any Hollywood movie with scenes shot abroad will now be economically unfeasible. So, you can kiss goodbye to The Fast and the Furious crew’s globetrotting adventures and Amazon’s next James Bond movie may be set entirely within the United States. But wait, it gets worse! Many major movies currently in production – or that have wrapped and are in post – have been shot outside the United States.

For example, Jurassic World Rebirth was shot in Thailand, Malta, and the United Kingdom and will hit theaters on Jul. 16 – does that mean the completed movie will now face a 100% tariff? Similarly, the Avatar movies are an international production, motion capture takes place in California, and live-action scenes and VFX scenes in New Zealand. Just for one more example, Avengers: Doomsday just began filming in the United Kingdom – will Disney now have to make the cripplingly expensive call to immediately move filming to the United States, likely delaying the film for a year?

In addition, it’s extremely vague how a 100% tariff would work. A movie is intellectual property, so isn’t imported into the country the same way a mobile phone or laptop is. As such, Trump may put a tariff on any incentives received by studios to shoot overseas, a tariff on movie tickets themselves, or – in a truly apocalyptic scenario for Hollywood – a tariff on the total box office revenue.

If this happens – and with Trump it’s always an “if” – his plan is an existential threat to movies as a concept. After all, these plans specifically apply to movies rather than TV shows, meaning that major studios may simply abandon movies as an art form in favor of making cheaper TV that isn’t hit by tariffs.