I awoke Monday morning to this striking headline, “Trump to Impose 100% Tariff on Movies Produced in Foreign Countries: ‘We Want Movies Made in America Again.’”
President Trump announced that he was authorizing his Department of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to “begin the process of instituting” a 100 percent tariff on movies produced outside the United States. “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” stated Trump on his 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. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.”
Hogwash. Downright ludicrous. A bad idea, especially for a woke industry so utterly unworthy. In truth, our movie industry offers disincentives to our filmmakers, especially conservative ones. (RELATED: A Single Word Induced My Hollywood Flashback)
Why in the world does Donald Trump want to protect Hollywood? Does he not realize what kind of bilge Hollywoke has been producing and, hence, why it has been failing? What the left-wingers who have hijacked Hollywood need is more, rather than less, foreign competition. The last thing they deserve is to be bailed out as they continue to generate garbage. Modern Hollywood’s values are antithetical to what has made America great. Its values certainly run contrary to those of Trump supporters.
The reality is that because of the leftist takeover of Tinseltown, conservative filmmakers have been forced to go abroad to make movies independently, having been blacklisted by the Hollywood Left. And here’s something that President Trump particularly needs to know: Another major reason for American filmmakers bolting Hollywood for greener pastures is that the taxes in California are so outrageous that the environment for making films there is cost-prohibitive. (RELATED: As Hollywoke Crumbles)
I know this from personal experience. Our 2024 Reagan movie was filmed in Oklahoma. It had to be made in Oklahoma because it could not be financially made in California. The tax rates busted the budget. We had to go to another state. (READ MORE: My Response to the Reagan Critics and Haters.)
That enormous tax burden was created by Democrats in California — politicians and their voters. Donald Trump’s movie tariff idea gets those Democrats (who despise him) off the hook. They will have no incentive to change their behavior. Hollywood’s liberal filmmakers and actors who complain about the high taxes on their movies will continue to do what they do: vote for the liberal politicians who slap them with the high taxes. It’s their own voting choices and policies that are hurting them, not foreigners.
Moreover, oftentimes a filmmaker must go abroad for the proper scenery. That’s so obvious that I need not give examples, but picture, say, a film like Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck. That kind of movie must be shot in Rome. Imagine trying to rebuild a set like that on a Hollywood studio lot, made even more financially impossible by California’s outrageous tax rates.
Sticking with Italy, look at the experiences of one of President Trump’s designated Hollywood ambassadors: Mel Gibson. Gibson’s epic The Passion of the Christ is the most successful independent film ever, and he had to shoot it abroad — in Italy. His coming sequel, on the Resurrection (again starring Jim Caviezel), is also filmed in Italy.
Hollywood, of course, hates Mel Gibson. The liberals there would strip him of his citizenship and exile him abroad if they could. Donald Trump’s tariff action rewards Gibson’s persecutors and, conversely, punishes Gibson for the wisdom and necessity of making his films abroad.
I recently did a piece on the Academy Awards committee denying the Reagan movie Oscar nominations because it failed to meet the industry’s hideous new DEI criteria. I concluded by urging filmmakers to get the hell out of Hollywood and make their films elsewhere, including abroad if need be. Trump’s action goes against that advice completely. It bolsters the DEI bullies in their ideological thuggery. (READ MORE: Hollywoke: The Motion Picture Academy of Bigotry.)
I can’t imagine even the typical MAGA supporter being happy with this Trump thinking. Indeed, as for where I read that headline noted at the start of this article, it was Breitbart. Typically, the readers in the comments section at Breitbart defend Donald Trump on almost anything, including his tariff policy. This time, however, the comments blasted Trump’s idea.
“Hollywood is 99% communist, LGBT trash,” reads the first of over a thousand reader comments. “It shouldn’t get any help from the government. Let it crash.”
“Yes, bailing those preachy leftist zeros out would just be rewarding bad behavior,” says the next comment. “Maybe make movies people actually want to see rather than preaching leftist nonsense at us?”
“With its incessantly woke agenda, Hollywood’s demise is completely self-inflicted,” said the next comment. “Just a stream of garbage being pumped out for years! Values antithetical to most Americans and globalist propaganda don’t sell.”
Here’s another: “The reason for foreign movies is because of Hollywood. Change Hollywood back to how they used to be and we won’t have that issue.”
And another: “I thought Trump was smart. Doesn’t he know that such a protectionist move will only make American-based films much more expensive, as production costs will move to absorb as much of that 100% buffer as they can get away with? Like universities and student loans.”
The comments went on and on, and they are spot on.
I appreciate that Donald Trump wants to help, say, American dairy farmers facing outlandish tariffs from Justin Trudeau’s Canada. But why protect and bail out corrupt, rotten, degenerate Hollywood? What Hollywood leftists have done to that extraordinary industry is unconscionable. They deserve condemnation. Actually, they deserve competition.
That’s something that Donald Trump ought to understand.
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