President Trump has threatened to impose 100% tariffs on movies made outside of the US.
Here is what he wrote on his Truth Social platform:
Some TV shows and movies have been moving their productions out of the US, but this is nothing new, and it was happening well before COVID and the various strikes. This was mainly being done as a lot of countries offer good tax incentives, and it can make far more sense financially to shoot overseas. In saying that, there are a lot of states within the US that also offer good incentives to shoot there
A podcast clip with Rob Lowe and Adam Scott, where they were discussing the cost of filming overseas as opposed to in California, went viral on social media platforms, but it was criticized by a lot of people for not necessarily stating all the facts. In saying that, it has become very expensive to film in states like California.
Instead of offering tax incentives for filming in the US, it appears that President Trump just wants to put tariffs on everything. A lot of productions shoot their movies and TV shows all over the world because the story relates directly to a location, so it would be interesting to see how any tariff would be implemented and what conditions a production would need to adhere to for it not to receive a tariff.
IATSE issued the following statement on President Trump’s movie tariff announcement:
