US President Donald Trump has announced his plan for a 100% tariff on all foreign produced films, citing national security concerns as his reasoning.
Over this past weekend President Trump stated he approached the Commerce Department and the US Trade Representative about implementing the new import tax as an additional sector specific tariff.
The tariff comes as US film and television production has been impacted by COVID-19, Hollywood guild strikes and recent LA wildfires. Movie production has subsequently moved away from California and either interstate to places like Georgia or internationally to Canada, Mexico and even here in Australia.
The Australian Government currently offers a 30% location offset and 30 per cent offset for post, digital and visual effects production. These offsets have already proven their success as major films starring Liam Neelson, Charlize Theron and Liane Moriarty have all been shooting across the country. New state of the art sound stages are also being planned and beginning construction in Queensland and Melbourne.
Despite Trump’s claim on his social media of Hollywood ‘DYING to a very fast death’,the industry actually holds a trade surplus, making over $35 billion dollars in exports in 2023.
It’s unclear how the proposed tariffs would work as traditional tariffs typically tax physical imports crossing borders. So experts question whether there would be a tax on ‘digital’ aspects or work such as editing that happens electronically when producing a film.
Sophie Janusko 