“I am authorising the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% tariff on any and all movies coming into our country that are produced in foreign lands,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Trump’s post comes after China, which has taken the brunt of the US president’s combative trade policies with 145% tariffs on many goods, said last month it would reduce the number of US films it imported.
Not letting foreign movies air makes sense, especially from an authoritian government. I don’t agree with it, but it’s something China has always done, and they get movies changed so it can play there.
But just how the fuck do you tarrif a foreign film?
Charge 2x for tickets? Give the production company a bill annually?
Like, it just makes zero logical sense how this could be implemented
(1) Movie theatres have to pay for rights to show films. Make them pay a 100% premium on whatever they’re paying for rights, as a tax.
(2) Streaming services and distribution companies usually have to pay production companies to make things. Charge a 100% tax if the production was foreign.
(3) If a company serves as both production and distribution (eg: Netflix), (2) still usually applies as they will have foreign business units in other countries and money moves around to pay for the production.
(4) If domestic companies shoot films on foreign locations, put a 100% tax on all costs incurred going to a domestic location to shoot.
Effect: More people bootleg foreign content and mostly this reduces the quality of Hollywood content for lack of foreign locations, etc. Trump issues some other sort of decree on Hollywood to control content, and everyone starts goose stepping.
I’d be surprised to hear of one popular big budget movie who had every step completed in a single country…
Like, I could go thru and tell you what you didn’t think of for each bullet point, but hopefully just that one point I just made will highlight how impossible this is.
How will that even work?
Not letting foreign movies air makes sense, especially from an authoritian government. I don’t agree with it, but it’s something China has always done, and they get movies changed so it can play there.
But just how the fuck do you tarrif a foreign film?
Charge 2x for tickets? Give the production company a bill annually?
Like, it just makes zero logical sense how this could be implemented
I have no idea how he will collect and he doesn’t either because he is an old fuck with dementia.
Not in favour, but here’s how I’d implement:
(1) Movie theatres have to pay for rights to show films. Make them pay a 100% premium on whatever they’re paying for rights, as a tax.
(2) Streaming services and distribution companies usually have to pay production companies to make things. Charge a 100% tax if the production was foreign.
(3) If a company serves as both production and distribution (eg: Netflix), (2) still usually applies as they will have foreign business units in other countries and money moves around to pay for the production.
(4) If domestic companies shoot films on foreign locations, put a 100% tax on all costs incurred going to a domestic location to shoot.
Effect: More people bootleg foreign content and mostly this reduces the quality of Hollywood content for lack of foreign locations, etc. Trump issues some other sort of decree on Hollywood to control content, and everyone starts goose stepping.
I’d be surprised to hear of one popular big budget movie who had every step completed in a single country…
Like, I could go thru and tell you what you didn’t think of for each bullet point, but hopefully just that one point I just made will highlight how impossible this is.