Trump Tariffs American Movies

Trump is placing a 100% tariff on movies made in foreign countries, and no one knows why or what this means but also how do you tariff a movie? He’s doing this because he says the movie industry in America is dying. He says that because countries are trying to get studios to film in their country with tax incentives this poses a national security threat. It is true that some countries like the UK and Australia offer tax incentives to studios if they film there, for instance the new Avengers movie will be filmed in the UK. But Marvel and Disney are still American companies based in California and the majority of movies are still shot in the US. And even with big blockbuster movies that film abroad, everything besides the filming is still done in America. It’s not clear why Trump thinks that the Avengers filming in the UK is a national security risk. Movies are very much still an American industry. In 2023, American movies accounted for 70% of all global film revenue. This is great for us economically but it has also given us unprecedented soft power. Art is an extension of ourselves so it naturally contains American themes and then spreads it around the world. This is why a lot of people say that American culture is, more or less, the default global culture. It’s so dominant that it just feels normal. Industry experts say that the US should offer tax incentives to get filming back if that’s what they want because putting tariffs on films not made in the US opens Pandora's box for very little gain. Foreign films simply do not pose a threat to American films at the Box Office so placing a tariff on them is just asking for it. If countries retaliate, this would destroy Hollywood and American influence, and it could also move the global trade war from goods to services. The US economy is 76% services, so this would be brutal. This has been kind of buried by his nonsense, but America is the biggest exporter of services in the world, and it has a trade surplus with most of the world when services are accounted for.

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