President Donald Trump shocked film fans across the country with his nonsensical announcement on Truth Social that he’d be ordering a 100% tariff on all films “produced in foreign lands.” Aside from the prima facie ridiculousness of this proposal, it also raised a series of logistical questions about how the tariff would work. In the confusion of trying to figure out its true impact, California Governor Gavin Newsom has stepped in with his own proposal to “make America film again” — one which would create a $7.5 billion federal film tax credit in collaboration with Trump, the largest single federal government subsidy program ever created for Hollywood.
Following a meeting with “special ambassador to Hollywood” Jon Voight, Trump released his statement about moving film production back to the United States because of the ostensibly dire nature of the industry here and the “national security threat” presented by foreign film producers. While there’s certainly been a great deal of change and uncertainty in Hollywood the past few years, I don’t think the prevalence of foreign films or outsourcing to foreign film producers has much to do with it. Streaming has reoriented audiences toward lazier forms of consumption, staying home to watch shows and movies they can have on in the background while they use their phones. Blockbuster movies with multi-hundred-million dollar budgets demanding billion dollar returns are becoming the norm for film studios, disadvantageing indie films and anything that isn’t a star-studded franchise film. Concerns about the use of artificial intelligence have propelled strikes in the film industry and prompted more discussion about its exploitative practices. Foreign films may have gained more acceptance, especially among Generation Z, but it’s not fair to say they’ve disrupted the industry enough to be considered “a national security threat.”
Still, industry officials have been bellyaching about the exodus from Hollywood for a while, spurred on by the industry decline over the past couple years. Yet even if the justification for the tariff was considered sound, the actual execution is definitely not. Trump and his team never clarified whether the tariff would apply to films merely produced in foreign countries, films produced by foreign production companies, or what figures the tariffs would even be applied to. All told, the idea came off sounding very ham-fisted and hasty. Luckily, Newsom and the Motion Picture Association have their own proposal to accomplish the same ends: tax credits.
Newsom previously suggested raising California’s film and tax credits from $330 million to $750 million a year, but this new proposal is orders of magnitude higher at $7.5 billion, though still unclear in its specific execution. A similar idea was reportedly pushed by Voight in his meeting with Trump, except on top of tax incentives he also suggested tax code changes, infrastructure subsidies and co-production treaties with other nations — accompanied by a quick mention of possible tariffs. Voight’s proposal is a follow-up to two others drafted in collaboration with the Motion Picture Association and endorsed by the Producers Guild of America, the Directors Guild of America, SAG-AFTRA, the Writers Guild East, Producers United, the Independent Film and Television Alliance and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. All of these suggestions are in the pursuit of, in Newsom’s words, “[making] America film again.”
Newsom has expressed his excitement toward working with the Trump administration on this project, despite his own party’s aversion to the president and the laundry list of negative remarks Trump has slung toward Newsom as recently as the day after Newsom’s proposal. This type of bipartisan support means only one thing: Corporate pockets are being lined. The Motion Picture Association is a trade association representing the largest film studios in the country, including Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery. Aside from the pure ickiness of Newsom’s enthusiasm to be working personally with the president, it should also raise alarms that the largest, richest and most powerful film studios in the world are unanimously pushing for tax credits that will only serve to strengthen their bottom lines.
Rather than implementing tax credits for school teachers or social workers or any other vital cog of society actively improving society for no personal gain, we’re making sure that more Marvel movies are being filmed in California instead of Australia. Proponents of the tax credit idea, like the Motion Picture Association, argue thousands of middle-class film set workers like technicians, caterers and camera operators are being put out of work by the status quo. The Motion Picture Association claims to be looking out for the little guys, but this is the same organization actively investigating ways to integrate AI into its process — thereby getting rid of hundreds of jobs and leaving many unemployed — and encouraging the government to do the same.
If by some horrible miracle the foreign film tariff manages to go through, it would have an outsized effect on foreign and indie filmmaking. Worse still for the American film industry, what’s to stop other countries from developing their own, more inclusive film industries to compete with the suddenly expensive prospect of releasing an American movie? Already at a disadvantage in a country predisposed against anything that isn’t in English, films like “Parasite,” “Spirited Away” or “Pan’s Labyrinth” might never be released here again if they’re further disincentivized by the federal government’s tariffs.
Does the United States really need to work so hard to prop up the cultural institution that is Hollywood? A CalMatters opinion piece contends that “No one should have to leave California for a career in the entertainment industry.” On the contrary, I think it’s ridiculous that anyone should need to migrate to Los Angeles for a career in the entertainment industry. We don’t need to commit ourselves to preserving such a centralized conglomeration of business interests, just because people are realizing that it’s easier and cheaper to film elsewhere. Give tax credits to people who actively contribute to society, not a gaggle of next-generation Harvey Weinsteins.
WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.
Contact Noah Zaldivar at [email protected].
