U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Monday through Truth Social that he will be implementing 100% tariffs on any and all films made outside the United States.
Trump says that the movie making business especially in California is declining. In the statement he says, “Our movie making business has been stolen from the United States of America, by other Countries, just like stealing “candy from a baby.” California, with its weak and incompetent Governor, has been particularly hard hit!”
U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement via Truth Social
However, it is unclear what the specifics of the tariffs are; raising questions on what they apply to and when they will be put in place.
Ethan Hickey, the managing director of Forest City Film Festival says that nothing is currently certain.
“I think it’s just a lot of talking and I don’t think that there will be any day-to-day effects that these tariffs have on anything. I’m not even quite sure he understands or anyone understands what is actually being, what he’s putting these tariffs actually on because that’s a very, those are big words he’s saying that are not directly to something that can be actionable.” he says.
The terms of the tariff are vague as The White House has yet to provide additional details on what is classified as an American film versus a foreign film.
There are various reasons as to why Hollywood is facing a decline but one large contributing factor is competition; film production domestic rivals such as Atlanta and New York, as well as international such as Australia, Britain, and Canada. Hickey says that [placing tariffs] is not the way to tackle this issue.
“I can understand The film industry in the U.S. is not what it used to be. American film production companies are shooting outside of the U.S. They’re shooting in Canada and they’re shooting in Europe and just internationally altogether. And that’s because other countries have caught up with the infrastructure that the U.S. has, and specifically talking about tax credits,” he says. “The government of a lot of these countries has tax credits in place to compete with the U.S. And yeah, California and Hollywood’s, you know, from what I hear, just a ghost town in a lot of ways. So I can sympathize with the attempt to bring American productions back into the US, but I just, I do not think this is the way to go about it.”
Hickey mentions that this is not of great concern for emerging Canadian talent. He believes that Canadian festivals will play a larger role in preserving cultural exchange in the film industry.
Forest City Film Festival on Opening Night
“Specifically this year, the Forest City Film Festival has just seen such a boost in ticket sales of our international films, part of our Best Worlds program. These are films from all across the world, and there is evidently an appetite among specifically young adults in southwestern Ontario that are buying tickets and coming out in groups to come watch movies that were made.” he says.
Trump announced he will also be placing tariffs on lumber and furniture.
