Trump says

President Trump said that he would impose a 100 percent tariff for films that are “produced” outside the United States, and proclaimed on Sunday in a social media post that the topic was a national security threat.

Mr. Trump said that he had approved Jamieson Greer, the sales representative of the United States, the process of taxation “all films that are coming to our country that are produced in foreign countries”. Mr. Trump added: “This is a concerted effort of other nations and thus a national security threat.”

The Motion Picture Association, which represents the largest Hollywood studios in Washington, rejected a statement. The most recent economic impact report of the association, which was mainly based on government data and was published in 2023, showed that the film industry created a positive trade balance in the USA for every major market in the world.

As so often with Mr. Trump's explanations on social media, it was not entirely clear what he spoke of. Did he mean a film, including independent foreign films intended for Art House Cinemas and films that play exclusively on streaming services?

Would such a custom only apply to films that receive tax incentives from abroad – or for a film with scenes that were made overseas? What about visual effects after production? A single superhero film can often contain half a dozen or more specialized companies that are scattered worldwide.

Technically speaking, the vast majority of the films shown in American cinemas are produced in the United States – wrote scripts, treated pre -production planning, main actor occupied, film material processed and sound added. But Hollywood has increasingly turned to foreign areas for the cameras roll part of the Moviemaking process, as it is much cheaper as with so much traditional production.