Breitbart: President Donald Trump responded to the continuing flight of movie production to other countries by floating a 100 percent tariff on films made outside the U.S. Many in Hollywood and elsewhere are not responding with gratitude but are, instead, lashing out at Trump’s proposal.
The film industry has been steadily fleeing Hollywood and California for more than a decade as locations in Georgia, Louisiana, New Mexico, and cities like New York and Chicago have been increasingly drawing productions their way. However, film producers have also been waving goodbye to the U.S. and taken up business in the U.K., Canada, Australia, and many spots in Europe.
California’s radical, left-wing, Democrat Gov., Gavin Newsom, has desperately tried to offer tax incentives to filmmakers, but the enticements are simply too little and too late for many producers. Film and TV production in the U.S. is already down 40 percent and that slide is continuing.
The result has been that many film industry workers have lost their jobs, and some have been forced to move elsewhere to try and keep their livelihoods intact.
Now, Trump has stepped in to offer a tariff incentive to keep film producers from fleeing the country.
The president took to his Truth Social account to speak to his alarm about the decline of the film industry in the U.S.
“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote on Sunday. “Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.
It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, I am authorizing 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. WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”
