Seven important questions about Trump's plan to Zalgern foreign films

President Trump announced a plan on Sunday evening to ask a 100% tariff for foreign films-what is a number of questions in Hollywood.

Starting with: Huh?

The production that has been out of control has been discussed for decades, and in the past few months there has been a move for federal politics to tackle it. But nobody – – – no one -In Hollywood asks for a tariff for foreign films.

Here are seven important questions that were unanswered through Trump's proposal:

Will he do that?

Trump only said that he “authorized” the US trade representative and the trade department in order to impose foreign films a 100% tariff. He didn't say he would do it. Trump sometimes did well with earlier threats of tariffs and sometimes withdrawn in view of the pressure.

Can he do that?

For earlier tariffs, Trump claimed authority according to the International Emergency Economic Affairs Act of 1977, which granted the President's broad powers to regulate foreign trade in the cases of national emergencies. The president rely on the theory that commercial attorney weights are a national emergency.

In his truth on Sunday evening, he argued that the out of control is a “national security threat”, but was not the legal authority to collect a tariff. Such an assertion of authority would undoubtedly be negotiated.

How would he do that?

Films are intellectual property, and in contrast to goods, they were not exposed to the tariffs. Some foreign country-in-the-art China positions in particular, so that only a limited number of US films can be shown in their theaters. But the mechanics to impose an actual tariff is a bit difficult.

For US companies that film in overseas – the source of the “out of control” – it is not clear which transaction is being sparse. When Disney makes a film abroad, it does not import the film on its own to show a certain fee on the US screens.

The Moviemaking process is also strongly internationalized – with some films, some of which were shot in the USA and partly shot overseas. Processing can take place in the USA or Canada or in another place. It would be a challenge to find out where you can intervene in the value chain.

When would he do that?

“Mission: Impossible – the final billing” opened on May 23. It was mainly shot in Great Britain. Is it exposed to a tariff? Is it a grandfather in? When does it start to bite?

What about television?

Trump's truth only speaks about “films”. But more TV production has also been overseas in recent years. The television production in Great Britain after non-UK companies (“Inward Investment”) increased in film production in 2020 and has remained significantly over since then.

Who wants that?

Not Hollywood. The theater business is fighting to return to the pre-Pandemic level. The last thing that is needed is a new tax for cinema cards.

When Canadian film subsidies were a new phenomenon in the late 1990s and early 2000s, some of the more militant elements of Hollywood's workers' movement called for “countermeasures” against studios that were shot in Canada. The idea was that such a tariff would bring jobs back to the United States by spending the benefits of the subsidies. The Motion Picture Association relentlessly rejected this idea and supported the right of other countries to offer files.

If not, what does Hollywood want?

Subsidies.

Entertainment unions have long pushed to a federal subsidy that competes against the national subsidies in Great Britain and Canada and (among other things) complement the subsidies offered in New York, Georgia and California. There was a lot of hope that Trump would be open to federal filely. But that would require congress measures, and that doesn't seem to be the focus at the moment.