Trump orders tariffs on all movies made outside of the U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered tariffs on all films produced outside of the U.S.

On his Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump said the U.S. film industry is “dying a very fast death” due to “all sorts of incentives” to move production to other countries. Declaring this a “national security threat,” the president ordered a “100% tariff on any and all movies coming into our country that are produced in foreign lands.”

However, as with many other things in the disastrous Trump administration, a tariff on movies makes absolutely zero sense. For one thing, it’s unclear how this would even be implemented, given that a film isn’t a tangible good like, say, a car. And beyond that, this would cripple Hollywood as a business, which relies heavily on production in countries outside of America.

Vancouver, for instance, has been dubbed “Hollywood North” for being a great place to film in terms of geographical diversity, a strong talent pool and government subsidies. Many big films have been shot in the province, including Deadpool and Deadpool 2, Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and Tron: Ares, as well as smaller productions like many Hallmark movies. (That’s to say nothing of major TV productions that are shot in B.C., like The Last of Us, Shōgun, Riverdale and Yellowjackets.)

Of course, Ontario has also been a big Hollywood filming location, with titles like The Shape of Water, X-Men, The Incredible Hulk and Pacific Rim being shot in the province. Altogether, as The Globe and Mail notes, nearly $5 billion worth of foreign movie and TV productions took place across Canada between April 2023 and April 2024.

And finally, limiting production to the U.S. would just stifle creativity. As one film producer noted to Variety, so many American movies are shot outside the country for narrative reasons, like the quintessentially British Harry Potter series in the U.K., the globe-trotting Mission: Impossible films across Europe or the epic The Lord of the Rings trilogy in New Zealand’s sprawling outdoors.

On Monday, the White House stressed that “no final decisions” have been made on the tariffs. However, it said the “Administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive to safeguard our country’s national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again.”

It’s worth noting that Prime Minister Mark Carney is set to meet Trump in person on Tuesday, so it’s possible this movie tariff might be discussed then.

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