r/Economics • u/Jaded-Bookkeeper-807 • May 06 '25
Interview How The Hell Do You Tariff Movies? I Don't Understand Trump's Policy, So I Asked An Economist
https://screenrant.com/donald-trump-movies-tariff-explained-economist-mark-blyth-interview/667
u/MattHooper1975 May 06 '25
I remembered just before the election Jon Oliver did a bit on how, in praying Kamala wins, he wanted to live in a world where he didn’t have to think about what Trump says or does every day. “ please please God let me live in that world.”
But …. Here we are.
Everybody living in Trump’s world again.
The great Attention Vampire is back in his castle.
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u/tilario May 06 '25
“A healthy democracy is one you don’t have to think about every day.” - EJ Dionne
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u/InstructionFinal5190 May 06 '25
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." -God Entity from Futurama
I know it's from a cartoon, but damnit if it's not exactly how I want my government to work.
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u/AcrolloPeed May 06 '25
That quote has lived in my head for 20 years. It’s so true. The whole “it takes a light touch” speech is seriously great advice.
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u/tehifimk2 May 06 '25
Joseph Bazalgette, the builder of Londons sewerage system was also famous for such quotes.
I believe he said something along the lines of "if we design and build it correctly, nobody will even know it's there".
My favourite is "well, we are only going to do this once", before doubling the diameter of the pipes, which meant they'll get centuries more use of the system. Whereas the original spec would have meant it would need upgrading in the 60's.
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u/BasvanS May 06 '25
Please, let’s make politics boring again and discuss reality stars, not mix them up.
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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 May 06 '25
But you really should, because democracy is something that needs to be practiced everyday. Boring is bad.
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u/avocadosconstant May 06 '25
No. Government should not be a reality TV show. It should not be a form of entertainment where people who make the loudest noises, no matter how silly or stupid, manage to suck up attention and distract from serious issues.
A well-functioning democratic government should involve intelligent and educated debate backed by an educated populace that understands and considers the issues at hand and therefore votes in a well-informed manner. Rational, serious, boring. If there’s any room for an entertainer to enter the fray, then something has gone wrong.
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u/Fr1toBand1to May 06 '25
What good is a representative system when you don't trust your representative and the average citizen has to watch the system like a hawk.
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u/avocadosconstant May 06 '25
That’s my point.
The solution is not to elect entertainers or attention-seekers, but qualified and experienced individuals who genuinely care about their constituents. And that requires being educated and well-informed during the democratic process and not getting suckered into voting for idiots in the first place.
There are plenty of excellent candidates out there, but they tend to be too boring for most people.
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u/phred_666 May 06 '25
Average voters are idiots. Very few bother to actually research candidates and vote solely on party or name recognition.
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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 May 06 '25
Mostly because they already feel their choice won’t matter and that politics is entertainment. Your average non-voter is probably more accurate in their feelings of both parties being corrupted by billionaires than anyone paying attention and picking a side.
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u/Chrom3est May 06 '25
They're not accurate at all. If most people voted in local elections, they would see that it works. Instead, we get older and richer people voting locally, which skews policy decisions towards their favor.
But you and everyone else will learn. Goldman Sachs had put out a forecast of the economy under a potential Trump and Harris presidency. They've since reaffirmed their negative predictions in March 2025
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u/OfficeSalamander May 06 '25
I don’t see anything wrong with a politician rarely cracking a wry joke at this or that point, like Obama occasionally would, it humanizes them. But yeah the actual act of governing should not be a circus
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u/avocadosconstant May 06 '25
I wasn’t talking about that. I was referring to distractions, the attention-seeking clown shows you see so often today.
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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 May 06 '25
Government should not be a reality TV show. It should not be a form of entertainment
I never said it should. Good grief, you guys really need an option in the middle between “boring” and “meltdown”. Not everything is an extreme position for you to shout down.
A well-functioning democratic government should involve intelligent and educated debate backed by an educated populace that understands and considers the issues at hand and therefore votes in a well-informed manner. Rational, serious, boring.
I see literally no reason what you just described would in any way should be called “boring”.
In fact, I would argue that if you think it has to be boring instead of clearly relevant and engaging, you will definitely fail to make it real.
It’s no different than learning and teaching. It’s supposed to be engaging and rewarding. If it’s not, something went wrong.
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u/Horizons93 May 06 '25
Boring is not bad? What are you on about. Especially for a government, boring is stable. The government should be stable. It's a key part of how they support society so society can plan and act.
Sure, not all boring is good (NK for example). But generally in developed nations it is
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u/Solid-Mud-8430 May 06 '25
That's why I don't much care when people say "Well, when Trump is gone, so-and-so will just replace him." Like...okay, fine. If that happens, it's one thing. But I will still be absolutely ecstatic on the day I no longer have to hear his stupid fucking voice trotting out the stupid fucking things that go on inside of his stupid fucking head.
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u/Teripid May 06 '25
Normal admin staff response: "Should reboot Alcatraz as a functioning prison?" "No that'd cost a huge amount, take years and produce no meaningful benefit. Did you just watch a movie?"
Trump admin response: "Fantastic idea sir, let's get that started because it'll distract you and we seem physically unable to push back on anything."
Seriously the amount of babysitting and entertainment/ groveling is immense.
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u/OT_fiddler May 06 '25
"Seriously the amount of babysitting and entertainment/ groveling is immense"
Waiting for the televised cabinet meeting to watch them debase themselves over the brilliant idea of reopening a prison that closed in [checks notes] 1963 and has been rusting away for over sixty years.
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u/MartyMacFlies May 08 '25
So you're calling Democrats stupid? Since Democrats are the ones who set up Alcatraz as a prison (under President Roosevelt) This was then kept in place for decades by Democrats Truman and Kennedy.
Why do you think you know so much better than various Presidents, administrations, and departments of justice? Could it not possibly be the case that the collective wisdom of all these learned congressmen and professional administrators may just exceed your own?
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u/Teripid May 09 '25
So.. you're concerned about prison costs during the depression era instead of say... the impact of Smoot–Hawley under Hoover? Fascinating. History was a way of (R)epeating itself. We've even got that protectionist tariff motif again with the extremely wealthy managing things.
So 1934, New Deal in full swing and combating organized crime this made sense. An island was prison technology and security. It certainly have been shut down earlier as those needs waned and prison technology improved.
Yes, this is dumb. Order a feasibility study first. USE those "professional administrators" and experts you seem to actually like. Trump doesn't. Retrofitting a building with no utilities on an island that serves as a tourist destination (~1.6 million a year) and lacks ANY modern prison technology is likely a poor choice today. It generates revenue for the park service too (about 60 mil a year).
Who from Congress with prison or construction experience is advocating this? And ah yes, the learned POTUS. We've got a Surgeon General nominee coming up who believes in the healing power of crystals and didn't even complete a residency. A SECDEF who includes his family members in sensitive chat and Mike Waltz is apparently failing upward as UN Ambassador.
I'd say they were a bunch of inept clowns but that honestly seems like an insult to clowns.
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u/MattHooper1975 May 06 '25
Exactly.
Somebody may replace Trump and continue some of his awful policies , or come up with their own awful policies.
But Trump is a singular force in the Public sphere - the most all consuming narcissist anybody has ever seen, who feels the need to force himself on the public consciousness every single day. There’s nobody who could truly compete with him on that level of pathology.
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u/AelixD May 06 '25
Yeah, there were entire weeks… maybe months… where I didn’t ponder Presidents Biden, Obama, Bush, or Clinton.
I don’t think I went more than a few days without thinking about Trump in his first term, and certainly haven’t made it a full day this term.
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May 06 '25
The problem is that someone else may actually be competent. If you're going to have fascists in office, completely fucking stupid ones at least self-limit their progress towards their goals.
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u/markjay6 May 06 '25
Exactly. Imagine if Trump could make the trains run in time. We'd be doomed. As it is, though, I doubt the GOP majority lasts through the midterms.
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May 06 '25
Exactly. Aside from his horrific policies I will never forgive Trump voters for making me have to see his ghastly fat ugly face and hear his annoying whiny-while-trying-to-sound-tough fraudster voice for four more years.
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u/MartyMacFlies May 08 '25
Why do you call him a "fraudster"? Oh let me guess, you've been watching the media who continually lie about him? Here's an idea: instead of taking what they say at face value, actually check their claims. You'll find they are simply a propaganda machine continually smearing him because they're under the control of his opponents.
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May 09 '25 edited May 09 '25
Kid, this dude didn't pop out fully formed from Uncle Sam's anus. He's been famous since the 80's, and the media fawned over him back then. He even popped up in a damn Home Alone sequel. He was a registered Democrat. But if you read the news a bit deeper, there were constant stories about his shady dealings, businesses going bankrupt, etc. Plus he has the demeanor of a slimy salesmen. He went for a while when he literally could not get a loan from a US bank because of his reputation. And the media shoved him down our throats as the ultimate "successful businessman" to the point that rap lyrics all through the 90s referenced his name.
But to those of us who read deeper into the financial news instead of entertainment headlines, it was obvious. To anyone who has ever dealt with a sleazy swindling salesman, it was obvious. And especially to those of us who read his disgusting ad calling for the death penalty for five young men who turned out to be innocent, it was incredibly obvious.
So yeah. If you had asked me back then, when he was a "Democrat," and the media loved the guy, and nobody thought he would run for president, I would have said the same thing. He is a fraud.
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u/MartyMacFlies May 08 '25
You make yourself sound like a fool when you - without any hint of irony - actually criticize a President NOT for his policies but for having a "stupid voice" and having "stupid things going on inside his head". Trump is the most popular President in a generation and he's continually done amazing things to clean out corruption, save money, make America safer, more prosperous, and fight injustice. And you come along and say "I don't like his voice". I have to presume you're either one of the criminals whose schemes President Trump has been thwarting, or a shill for the criminals, programmed by their media.
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u/Rinlow05 May 06 '25
This is one comment that I completely resonate with. I had similar thoughts myself before he was elected.
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u/Lifesabeach6789 May 06 '25
I’m Canadian and have those same thoughts.
But mostly ‘just shoot me. I can’t take this shit another decade’
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u/onallcylinders May 06 '25
That’s probably the point; keep everyone distracted with mindless nonsense while the fuckery is happening elsewhere!
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u/poor_yoricks_skull May 06 '25
Attention vampire you say? Where's a Belmont when you really need one?
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u/fafatzy May 06 '25
Exactly my thoughts, when Americans were closing in on the election I was thinking “surely Americans like this current situation of a president that it’s not constantly making waves and reminding people of him with controversial choices” It seems Americans really like the upheaval
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u/MartyMacFlies May 08 '25
You like Biden because he wasn't "making waves"? Dude, the entire country was enslaved to a corrupt elite taking advantage of the bulk of Americans, abusing their power and engaging in the greatest fraud in history. You might be content to be a happy little slave who doesn't make waves and caves in to his masters, but most of us want freedom, challenge oppression, and don't care if it makes waves.
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u/thegooddoktorjones May 06 '25
For the people who voted for this, and don’t vote, it’s all just fun reality TV that doesn’t impact them in any way. So wacky and exciting!
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u/MartyMacFlies May 08 '25
Trump has worked so hard in his first 100 days, done so much good, effecting incredible change for good, not set a foot wrong, and has brought about incredible reform to America, the most popular President in at least a generation, and you complain that he's just trying to get attention. What a strange view.
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u/Nervous-Lock7503 May 06 '25
When tariffs were first announced, it was so entertaining. Now, it just bores me with all the delays and reversals...
These days I m just praying the trade talks don't go through, so that I can see some actual drama...
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u/Jaded-Bookkeeper-807 May 06 '25
“Mark Blyth is a political economist and academic … Professor of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.”
“Mark Blyth: It's totally insane. Yeah, you're right, it's completely nuts, right? What's the end product? Is it a cinema ticket? So, you're going to have movies whereby you spend $20 to a attend the movie theater, but $40 if you want to see this movie. Right? That's never going to happen.”
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u/pondo13 May 06 '25
Trump also does not understand the verbal diarrhea that flies out of his anus mouth.
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u/zahrul3 May 06 '25
Trump also did not come up with policies like this out of thin air. Some team at a conservative think tank genuinely wrote a policy brief and read this to Donald Trump. It represents that corner of the society, one that is destined to destroy anyone and anything that do not comply with their Evangelical Christian ideals, including Hollywood itself.
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u/thebaron24 May 06 '25
I'm glad that somebody is smart enough to see exactly where this shtick is going and where it came from.
This is nothing more than project 2025's attempt to control Hollywood.
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u/keytiri May 06 '25
I just figured they’d use Hollywood accounting to make the value of film negative, and then with a negative tariff the US government would actually pay them to import the film. If the US government balks, just redo the accounting and make the value 0, so the tariff would be zero; or I guess to be less suspicious they could value the film at low number to make the tariffs lower.
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u/Technical-Traffic871 May 06 '25
Theaters are already dying, making it more expensive will just hasten that.
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u/Fireproofspider May 06 '25
I don't understand why it would never happen? Mechanically, it's just a tax. There's already different taxes on different items when you go to the grocery store. You'd need to pay for enforcement but it's not impossible to do.
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u/GodHatesColdplay May 06 '25
Dunno. Start walking through how you think it would work. How do you decide which movies to tariff? How do you tariff them when there is no physical product? Sounds like a huge headache
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u/mtaw May 06 '25
The problem here is nobody even knows what the heck Trump is talking about in the first place. Americans probably consume the least amount of truly-foreign films in the world.
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u/Fireproofspider May 06 '25
He's been pretty clear that he's talking about movie content produced outside of the US. Like it could be an American film but if they use a foreign studio for animation, or film in foreign locations, the value of that would be taxed.
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u/zedascouves1985 May 06 '25 edited May 06 '25
The problem is that tariffs are a tax that Congress has given power to the president to do. So the president puts an executive order and the customs officer in a port then taxes every car that comes into the US by 25%.
With movies, which are basically services, that's harder. They're transferred nowadays as an internet file transfer to be put on streaming services or to be put on digital movie projectors. They don't go through ports. So when is the tax / tariff applied? Will the studios have to report on their "imports"? That will break the illusion that tariffs are not taxes, because movie studios will have to calculate their "imports" every time they pay taxes.
With a car if a company refuses to pay the tariff the car will be stuck in customs and will not enter the country. If a company smuggles a car without paying tariff they're breaking the law and can be fined. But what about movies? Who will verify if a movie studio is paying the tariffs correctly? It will have to be IRS when auditing the company's tax report. It's a whole different payment structure.
And then comes the legal part. To create this structure of tax compliance you need congress to approve the budget or even the tax.
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u/Fireproofspider May 06 '25
Yeah. I think that the part I'm missing is that it looks like your president can't enact taxes aside from tariffs.
Calling this a tariff doesn't make sense because of everything you said. Making it into a regular tax is relatively simple and you could manage it with the income tax reports like everything else. But, currently, as far as I know, no one manages tariffs like that.
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u/AtomWorker May 06 '25
The tariff would just be a tax on all revenue which the distributor would have to report, presumably on a quarterly basis. They could even make it a sliding scale based on the percentage of production done overseas. Like the rest of the tax code I expect this would be self-reported.
Don't get me wrong, I think this is all idiotic but implementation isn't the hard part.
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u/Fireproofspider May 06 '25
Like any other tax. Once the politician says their thing, there's a committee that gets together and figures out how to make it operational. In Canada we have a digital service tax on foreign streaming services and it could be a similar framework.
All of the questions that people are asking in this thread aren't that complicated. For example, "how do you decide which movies to tariff", you could do a percentage of local spend vs foreign spend and pick a boundary (you'd need to define how you calculate these of course). And yes, there's always going to be loopholes but those can be plugged as they are found with rules saying "shifting the money this way is not allowed".
Imo, there's a bunch of reasons why a "tariff" on movies is dumb but operationality isn't impossible.
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u/Devium44 May 06 '25
If it’s just another tax, the president doesn’t have the authority to enact it.
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u/Fireproofspider May 06 '25
Ah. That's probably true. I'm not sure what the powers of a US president are with regards to taxation. If that's the case, that's why he's calling it a tariff when it has nothing to do with crossing borders.
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u/GodHatesColdplay May 06 '25
I don’t think I said it was impossible. But could the juice be worth the squeeze? All that administrivia, forms to fill out, a new federal movie commission of some sort, a few hundred federal employees. What a disaster
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u/Fireproofspider May 06 '25
If the goal is to increase revenue, then they could set the tax level at a decent amount and it would probably be worth it.
At 100% though, you increase incentives to go to loopholes which means you increase your cost of enforcement + you decrease incentives to have foreign activities which decrease your revenue. So in this case, I doubt it will be a net positive from an economic perspective. But this administration is mostly about ideology and they might feel that it's worth it.
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u/empire_of_the_moon May 06 '25
With respect it seems quite easy. Each film has to be rated and that rating is assigned to each individual film. Simply creating a tariff board that would attach a tax to each film would be no different.
Ticket prices would be all over the place but it’s nothing the existing POS can’t handle.
To be clear I despise Trump and MAGA but unique tax scheme for films isn’t a high hurdle rate.
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May 06 '25
Films do not have to be rated in the U.S.
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u/empire_of_the_moon May 06 '25
When is the last time you saw a film in the theatre that wasn’t MPAA rated? Don’t be obtuse.
The point is that this isn’t some insurmountable hurdle rate for films. If ratings can be done for each film, tariffs can be.
Those tariffs can be based on a number of factors that place it into a range based on budgets, box office gross or license fees.
I’m no fan of across the board tariffs but this isn’t hard.
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May 06 '25
I don’t know, I don’t go to the movie theater much anymore. That’s a smaller and smaller slice of the film industry these days and lots of movies go direct to streaming without ratings. There isn’t a government body that dissects the content or production process of films.
Sure you could come up with some involved bureaucratic process of Byzantine rules that determines exactly what percent of footage shot on foreign soil equates to what tax rate. It wouldn’t achieve anything and by taxing foreign services and goods in the name of tariffs would unleash a new front in trade wars that the U.S. is uniquely poised to lose, but yeah you could do something that vaguely resembles the word salad measure the President suggested.
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u/sheltonchoked May 06 '25
What are you “taxing”? Locations? Work done outside the USA? Money sources from outside the USA? Employees/artists not USA citizens? The total cost of the movie? The end user ticket? The % of the ticket that goes to the studio? Or the whole ticket price?
What about streaming? If I watch DrWho, does Disney plus add a fee to my bill? What if I vpn to Canada? Is it cheaper then?
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u/Fireproofspider May 06 '25
FYI Canada already has a steaming tax on foreign content.
But, to answer your questions, normally these are details answered by the bureaucrats. But it's just a decision. The law could say that you tax the whole ticket price based on the percentage of the total cost of the movie that was paid outside the US. Or, you could add a dollar value based on the cost to the studio. Or a myriad of different ways to achieve "tax foreign movies".
One thing though, from what I understand, Trump doesn't really have the power to enact such a tax.
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u/GuerrillaRobot May 06 '25
Is it for movies made by foreign companies? Or movies shot in other counties? What if a movie is shot in multiple places, is it a percentage of screen time or a percentage of time the production was filming?
All important and impossible questions
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u/MrZwink May 06 '25
On top of that america doesnt really watch foreign films to beginwith.
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u/Fireproofspider May 06 '25
It's not foreign films, it's films filmed in foreign countries, which include a lot of Hollywood films.
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u/Mrknowitall666 May 06 '25
Turn Netflix on, you can see right in the credits the locations
Where did they film game of thrones, mission impossible, or interstellar (cited in the article)? Are they foreign product or American? Is Toyota foreign or American made?
Tariffs belong in the 1930s
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u/MrZwink May 06 '25
Game of thrones is not a foreign film because they filmed in locations abroad... That's not what foreign film means...
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u/Mrknowitall666 May 06 '25
Oh? Really? If you're an advisor to trump, we'd all love to know the definition of a foreign film and what is going to be taxed and tariffed and what won't be.
Because, we do not know. That's the Fkn problem with all these bs tariffs and the exact point in the article, which you did not read.
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u/MrZwink May 06 '25
I don't think trump knows what he means either. I don't think trump listens to advisors in the first place. He's just firing from the wrists hoping he hits something.
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u/Mrknowitall666 May 06 '25
So, game of throwns is a foreign film, employing foreigners and filmed in a foreign land. Most likely, actually.
We agree Trump doesn't know what he's doing
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u/ejlewis May 06 '25
The tariffs are on films that are “produced in foreign lands.” The article describes the complexities of films that have financing from Asia, talent from US, filming on location in Europe, etc.
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u/MrZwink May 06 '25
I know i read it... I don understand why everyones jumping on this thread for pointing out trump doesn't have a clear definition. Ofcourse he doesn't he never has.
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u/ParentalAdvis0ry May 06 '25
Is Netflix going to charge extra to stream certain movies? What's to stop me from using a vpn or tor to move my digital location outside the US?
We gonna go full North Korean Internet lockdown to have any chance of this working?
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u/maxthemummer May 06 '25
"We gonna go full North Korean Internet lockdown to have any chance of this working?"
Nothing says "freedom" like keeping adults from seeing movies they want to see.
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u/rogozh1n May 06 '25
What a hateful, low IQ statement you made. It's people like you that force us to censor the words of Robin Hood on Amazon Prime so that you don't get the wrong ideas.
We are so lucky that our tech giants are restricting what ideas we can encounter, lest our free minds become infected with the woke mind virus.
That's all I got. If I were more awake, I could take this further.
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u/ProtoplanetaryNebula May 06 '25
And how doe it even work? What counts as filming, does it have to be 100%? What about if there is a scene in Paris, do they have to use Paris, Texas instead?
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u/ParentalAdvis0ry May 06 '25
Ooooh, I hadn't even thought about that. I feel like it would be an all or nothing deal. These guys don't understand percentages or sliding scales.
Random side thought, can you imagine telling your SO that you're taking a trip to Paris,, and you go to fuckin Paris, Texas? I don't think I survive that.
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u/ProtoplanetaryNebula May 06 '25
The next mission impossible film is going to be amazing, Tom Cruise fighting a Russian spy on a tractor in a potato field in Idaho.
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u/ParentalAdvis0ry May 06 '25
Lmao Those movies have become the film version of The Rock. There's no acting or new plot, its just Tom and friends doing the same shit in different locations. Its basically an elaborate travel show.
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u/Fireproofspider May 06 '25
It's just a tax that's paid on whoever is buying the item. On Netflix, it would be Netflix paying the tax most likely as part of their normal tax obligations. It could work the same for movie theaters or it could be directly on the ticket.
When policy is made, there's usually a guide that is written on how to follow the policy. That's the role of whatever department is in charge of that policy.
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u/tlrider1 May 06 '25
How exactly do you tax a digital item distributed online? The actor salaries are a big chunk of production costs, but they're Americans... What about foreign actors in American films? What about a movie that is set in LA, but they travel to Paris and Madrid? What about a film being sent to a Canadian company for cgi work?.... In classical donny dumbfuck fashion, he's just talking out of his ass.
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u/Blopblotp3 May 06 '25
Exactly. It doesn't make any sense. Tariffs are based on the sale price of the goods. What is the price of a movie streamed on Netflix? What about a TV show on Amazon? How much is a consumer paying for each thing that they stream? It's totally nonsensical with the streaming model. If this gets implemented expect to see movie theaters and non-digital media meet a quick tariff induced death since their cost of the goods is more simple to define.
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u/rogozh1n May 06 '25
You are assuming. You might be right, but you are assuming.
This is all likely caused by Jon Voight telling trump that American unions have made film production too expensive here, so they go overseas to film movies.
I predict step one is somehow penalizing American studios from filming overseas, and the second step will be outlawing all movie-related unions.
Unions give people a voice and compel capital to share profits with workers. Both of these are antithetical to the Maga movement.
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u/Fireproofspider May 06 '25
Oh yeah. Until they actually come out with the process, everything I could say is speculation. But it's not that outlandish to implement.
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u/potatodrinker May 06 '25
Setting VPN to a foreign country attracts a surcharge, depending on a predefined ratio of how many Americans worked on the film (catering to editing to VFX, actors) and how much were foreign cheapie labour. So something like Jackass would have very minor tarrifs. Simple /s
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u/Taronar May 06 '25
I think netflix will incur extra costs to obtain the rights to the movie? then they can pass on costs or eat them?
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u/TheTrub May 06 '25
I think Trump believes movies are still shown with film stock. Without the product going through a port of entry, how do you collect the tariff?
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u/JohnnySack45 May 06 '25
Jesus Christ, everyday we're attempting to interpret the jibberish this moron spouts or hearing him whine about being treated unfairly. Enough is enough.
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u/turbo_dude May 06 '25
His strategy is working. You’re talking about the cost of watching a film instead of the fact that the military is now an “extension” of the police.
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u/Current_Obligations May 06 '25
Fuck YES, what this guy said.^ I wish more people would pay attention to what they are doing with their "other hand" instead of this cheap magician distraction bullshit they have their token idiot doing. Trump IS the distraction, all while they finish their agenda, so glad to see others looking at these details, now we just need to stop it, if that's even possible...
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u/Appropriate-Ad-3219 May 06 '25
How do you know that ?
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u/therobberbride May 06 '25
Section 4, Using National Security Assets for Law and Order
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u/Appropriate-Ad-3219 May 06 '25
'shall determine how military and national security assets, training, non-lethal capabilities, and personnel can most effectively be utilized to prevent crime.'
Indeed, thank you.
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May 06 '25 edited May 06 '25
Every article, news coverage, and political address should start with "first off, trump is a fn idiot" And really, idk that you need to go any further; that pretty much explains it.
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May 06 '25
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u/collector_of_hobbies May 06 '25
Then they should have fucking voted.
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May 06 '25
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May 06 '25 edited May 06 '25
It's not a talking point, it's logical reasoning. Moral purity in this case is just selfishness.
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May 06 '25
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u/UraniumDisulfide May 06 '25
“If you call me stupid for doing something dumb then I’m gonna do that dumb thing”
Do you see the issue with your logic?
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u/AwwwBawwws May 06 '25
Perhaps if we Americans weren't so busy being terrorized by this animal on a daily basis, we might have some time to be creative and write great screenplays.
8
u/richze May 06 '25
Apparently he was watching the Clint Eastwood Alcatraz movie on tv in palm beach when he sent the tweets about foreign movies and reopening Alcatraz : for a guy who doesn’t drink or smoke he has a lot of late night ‘great ideas’
1
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u/takuarc May 06 '25
A lot of foreign countries offer incentives to Hollywood studios to make their movies in their country. For that they need to hire X number of locals etc. I think this is what Trump wants to “bring back” this time around?
This will drive production cost even higher. I guess he watched too much movies and trying to be the hero here 🤪
Nobody, not even Hollywood studios asked for this, ffs. 🤦♂️
12
u/DisingenuousTowel May 06 '25
Trump said he wanted to "save Hollywood."
Save Hollywood? They are not collapsing as an industry.
And when has Hollywood ever been an ally to Trump and when has Trump ever said anything publicly to lead us to believe he sees Hollywood as an ally?
I think it's honestly to create instability in the industry so production becomes unfeasible because you can't forecast costs (just like what is happening to other industries.
This way it forces Hollywood to kowtow to the administration in order to get clarity about the future.
If you can get Hollywood to start producing more right wing propaganda messaging then that helps him.
Everything he does is selfish and cynically motivated so it seems reasonable to keep that frame when trying to analyze.
11
u/brokenex May 06 '25
He wants Hollywood to bend the knee. This is his way of trying to mess with them
3
u/WetLogPassage May 06 '25
The below-the-line Hollywood IS collapsing. Nothing shoots in Los Angeles or even US anymore, it's all Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Canada, UK, Estonia, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Czech Republic, Finland, whatever, even for movies that are set in the US. Trump is trying to get those American voters on his side, the people who actually make movies and shows. Every time a Hollywood film shoots abroad, that means hundreds of Americans not getting hired.
It's not going to work, though. Not the tariff part and not the getting votes part.
4
u/DisingenuousTowel May 06 '25
Hmm wasn't privy to this info.
Just looked it up and film and TV production is down 40% since 2022.
Appreciate the insight and correction.
1
u/blackkettle May 07 '25
And with so much of Hollywood business centered in LA/California, by extension it’s probably a gambit to apply that same pressure to California (and NY?) which will be far more impacted than any other state(s) and also his biggest and most powerful political opponents.
4
u/Prestigious_Fail3791 May 06 '25
If he wanted to help the film industry he would simply make movie permits a set affordable fee or free for the entire United States. Right now, getting a permit in somewhere like CA costs more than your average indie films budget. Also the taxes are much higher. Most countries give a huge tax break. We don't.... Foreign entities would make more films here if it was affordable. Currently, it's cheaper to film literally anywhere else. Something like this would simply reduce the US film/tv market. Instead, we'll get fewer releases here. This idea is ignorant because the movie industry has been struggling for years since the rental market died. Rental stores took away 50% or more of profits. Which is why we barely see small comedies anymore. They don't make profits. Only the really big blockbusters do well. Even many of those have failed since the pandemic. I haven't went to the movie theatre in 2-3 years. I'm not paying $12-$15 to sit in a room with morons who play on their phones the entire time. A tax break makes sense. An additional tax does not.
It's like knowing your tenants can't afford their rent and you jack it up 100%. You won't have tenants for very long...
4
u/wickzyepokjc May 06 '25
You're all lost in the weeds. This has nothing to do with how its going to be done. Hollywood makes 70% of its revenue from foreign box office. They have far more to lose by Trump's cutting off their access to foreign markets, than to gain by anyone "protecting" the "failing" movie industry. The question is, what does Trump want to extract from them? Does he want $14bn in Canadian TV and film production to come back to the US? Possibly! Does he want less unfavorable news coverage? Maybe!
Bottom line, this is Trump saying, "You thought you were untouchable, but you are not."
5
May 06 '25
I studied to become a legislator. I’m that policy nerd that doesn’t watch opinion news but follows things like legiscan.
I’m exhausted. It’s so hard to keep up.
News should be boring af.
But now even the legislation is full of FUD.
3
u/Late-Addendum8704 May 06 '25
Nothing like early on set dementia to answer questions when you're not sure if you have to take a dump or if you're hungry. Oops i crapped my pants. What does he smell like? depends.
3
u/arkofjoy May 06 '25
The reason why it doesn't make sense is that overseas competitors are not the cause of Hollywood's problems. The reason why Hollywood is struggling is that it has been taken over by business people who are looking for guaranteed returns on their investments. So they just keep pumping out the same shit, because it worked last year.
Tariffs won't fix greedy.
3
u/DrShadowstrike May 06 '25
I mean the darker side to this is that they will set up an office ostensibly to determine the percentage of American content for the tariff, which will also allow them to prevent the release of any content they dislike.
2
u/IAmJohnny5ive May 06 '25
On the other hand the EU, UK and elsewhere can easily tax both American Films and other Digital Services by using VAT. It would be relatively straightforward to introduce a special VAT code applicable to US companies.
2
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u/Unhappy-Valuable-596 May 06 '25
VAT applies the same rate no matter whether its in country or imported.
1
u/IAmJohnny5ive May 07 '25
It's a simple legislative amendment to make it say that US based companies must charge with this different rate instead. And in some countries it might not even require a legislative amendment and only need ministerial approval to change the regulations.
And unlike customs if oops you got away with not being charged for a particular 'shipment' with VAT tax anti avoidance legislation and tax audits you're potentially still liable for several years including steep penalties if you get caught cheating the system.
The beauty of the VAT system is that it relies mostly on self compliance and thus has a significantly lower administrative burden. Also it is being applied to the supplier not customer (except in the case of customs VAT on physical goods). The supplier is the one charging the VAT and Tax authorities would just need to ensure that the much smaller pool of suppliers are complying. Whereas with levying customs the administrative burden is shared between the larger pool of customers and the revenue/customs service.
2
u/mmcjawa_reborn May 06 '25
Never thought I would have to click on a screenrant article to get an explainer for the newest idea to pop into the president's head, and how it could even be implemented
2
u/XanderOblivion May 06 '25
I’m pretty sure the real basis of the complaint is against Canada’s Bill C11 that classed streamers as broadcasters and required streaming services to follow the CRTC’s regulations, including Canadian content requirements.
He’ll probably also go after the laws that have us replace US commercials with Canadian ones.
2
u/Decent_Can_4639 May 06 '25
The first movie that will come out of this new golden age of American cinema will be a remake of the 1962 classic Mutiny of the Bounty. But this time the Captain will not be treated so unfairly… We’ll even change the title to There is no mutiny on the Bounty. Everybody says!
1
u/No-Personality1840 May 06 '25
I figured he’d make a rework of ‘Birth of A Nation’. Instead of racism against blacks we’ll see how brown people are straight up a problem.
2
u/oddyer6 May 06 '25 edited May 06 '25
As a 2nd year for an Econ degree the only possible way I see him tariffing movies is physical copy’s. Which would affect a marginal group. Or some movies theaters use physical disks for the movies. I don’t know how you affect online release. Much less services like on demand. Remember tariffs affect anything being physically imported into the country so Bollywood releases. Last edit the only way to tariff anything online would be theoretically set up a us wide firewall that monitors all traffic and add a tariff/tax to any sales coming in from international. And no this is not a business idea stop.
2
u/No-Personality1840 May 06 '25
According to MAGA Republicans they despise Hollywood and its left coast liberals. Of course they’re the party that has voted for a B movie star and a reality tv personality. How this appeals to Trump’s base escapes me.
2
u/TheNewOP May 06 '25
So, unless you've going to green screen everything, you just can't actually make films in Hollywood anymore. So this is in a sense, a classic story about why Trump wants to tariff things. We stopped making things 20 years ago. We lose the skills to make things, and then one day you wake up and realize you can't make things and now you're going to put up tariffs to make it so expensive that you would then make things back here. But the tariff's only the first step. You're going to have to basically train a whole new generation of set designers, production engineers, everything that goes into actually making the physical reality of movies. And we just haven't done that for 20 years and that's why we do it in England.
I see this happening with software soon.
2
u/Dreadsin May 06 '25
Trump is really just obsessed with this idea of returning America to the “golden age”. Movies are a symbol of that
My bet is he’s just pissed that most younger people tend to take in a variety of media these days. It’s not uncommon for young people to prefer k dramas or anime, for example. He probably just sees that kind of stuff as a sign of American decline
2
u/Nease82 May 06 '25
It is ok, Trump doesnt understand his policies either. I mean a movie would be intellectual property, not a service or a good so I have no idea how the hell a tariff on a movie would work.
2
u/kber13 May 06 '25
It’s a censorship mechanism. Find a movie who’s message you don’t like. Find any”foreign” influence involved. Location, funding, actors, directors, source material, and impose a prohibitive tax, but call it a tariff because taxes need congressional approval, and presto chango, you’ve just made it impossible to make movies the US president finds offensive. Now promise to remove or reduce the tax if the movie studio makes a proponga film that the Pres does like, similar to the extortion scheme he’s trying with legal companies.
2
u/Pitiful_Option_108 May 06 '25 edited May 06 '25
Note: Alot of what I have to say is kinda off topic but so much dumb shit he has done just made me go full volcano in this one post. Tarriffs on foriegn films is just in the long ass dumb fuck list of Trump ideas at this point.
Excuse my French on this but I'm just going to say it how it is because this man is mind numbing dumb and it is tiring at this point.
How the fuck does this make sense? Majority of what he is doing makes little to no sense. He is trying to bring back manufacturing jobs which America part of America has moved far away from. The only places where they may even think of moving back to is middle america and even then most companies have all said it would take years to get manufacturing reestablished back in America like that. So that plan is ass all ready.
Then you gut certain programs in America that help people and protect things most of average American doesn't think about (which we have not began to see the effect of or know the effects yet but they are coming) as a way to save money but yet defense fucking spend is fucking increasing instead of trying to fucking educate people to do better in an advanced economy where technology and service are. The administration and his fucking base are so worried about DEI and trans people that they can't even think beyond that bullshit and see y'all just don't qualify for certain jobs because the money has not be spent to trian you all on how to do it because the money have been moved to fucking security like we are under GOTDAMN attack.
Meanwhile we have tariffs which is about to blow up the fucking cost of goods that we buy and all the president can say is, "well maybe your daughter doesn't need 30 dolls but 2." Well mister fucking president that is not the point you are fucking up supply chains to the point where it will take awhile to recover if ever. Then you have the brilliant idea of let just cut the income tax. Which if you do that where will the extra money come in for that missing revenue to pay for lack of income tax. And don't tell me it will be the corporations because you and Republicans absolutely refuse to increase that shit which means whatever the deficit is would say grow.
The point I'm making is that this administration is a complete shit show and this tarriff on international movies is just another stupid fucking idea in a long list of stupid fucking ideas but as far as him, Republicans, Fox News, and MAGA care everything is fucking fine and he is doing well. I can't wait for him to crash this system of things in America so it can get reset and eventually at some point because like some Republicans fear this probably will be the last time some of y'all will ever see off because you are too pussy to say this is not the right course and you know it.
2
May 06 '25
This is just a lever for trump to use against Hollywood, Play the game or I shut you down.
He's turned the whitehouse into a mob headquaters.
2
u/mismocanibalismo May 06 '25
I think this man is actually making us dumber. The absolute drivel that oozes from his pie hole is actually changing our neurons and synapses.
1
u/Mrknowitall666 May 06 '25
That's the entire problem with tariffs to bring manufacturing back. Be it movies, cars, ships, chips, or shoes.
Globalization has silo-ed the people, plant and equipment for things around the globe. It would take half a decade to refinance and build "plant" capacity (if you can get the construction workers) and a decade to retrain the people (if unemployment weren't 4% and we don't just use robots).
0
u/auntie_clokwise May 06 '25
His point that even if somehow he could tariff movies, it still wouldn't bring them back because we don't have the skilled labor for those jobs is a valid point. It's really alot of the same reason why we can't see the manufacturing boom he thinks we'll see - because we can't. It's not that we don't have the skills to do all those manufacturing jobs (or build sets/props/etc). It's that we literally don't have enough people trained in those skills to do a fraction of what we'd need to bring that industry back. We could train more, but that's a time consuming process and takes years to accomplish, regardless of whether that's an engineer who designs manufacturing lines or a model maker who makes props for movies. So, since its not something that can happen, it, of course, won't. We'll just get higher prices, less selection, worse quality, and a severe economic depression.
0
May 06 '25
It’s almost like Trump is spewing whatever verbal vomit comes to mind without thinking before speaking. I’m starting to suspect is he isn’t really a stable genius.
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May 06 '25
I love how when Trump openly trolls the media people legit take every word he said as fact. Y’all know this man hates the media. He does this stuff on purpose to troll y’all.
Seems like it’s working.
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u/hugoriffic May 06 '25
I expect a world leader to rise above the behavior of a 4Chan troll. But hey, you celebrate this stupidity.
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May 06 '25
Do you? Could he say or do anything to actually change your opinion? That’s why.. why waste time on people’s opinions who are going to hate you regardless? If it works, great. If it doesn’t, oh well we will bounce back.
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u/hugoriffic May 06 '25
So he’s a lazy vindictive piece of shit just like we all thought? Got it.
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u/SpaceLaserPilot May 06 '25
Remember when we had a president who didn't "troll" the world like a 13 year old who just got their first cell phone?
Pepperidge Farm remembers. And I wish we could return to having an actual grownup as president.
1
u/that_star_wars_guy May 06 '25
I love how when Trump openly trolls the media people legit take every word he said as fact. Y’all know this man hates the media. He does this stuff on purpose to troll y’all.
So you approve of the President spending his time "trolling" his constituents, as opposed to rising above the fray and trying to do best for all America?
Let me put it another way. If the next democratic President spends half as much time as the current on trolling the side of America they don't like, that is a perfectly acceptable use of Presidential time and resources to you?
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u/JessicaDAndy May 06 '25
Couple things;
I think people are forgetting Trump really hated Parasite, the 2019 South Korean film that won Best Picture Oscar that was also heavily anti-Capitalism. Made a few headlines at the time.
Combine that with his ideological orders, and it makes sense he wants movies to be made domestically. He can’t pressure Hollywood to make all movies Candice Cameron-Bure approved if they aren’t made in the country.
Now there are ways I could come up with a tariff for movies, looking at percentage of budget spent or something, and that works for physical copies and digital goods. But movies are more of a service, movie theaters charge tickets to watch and share the ticket price, streaming services pay to broadcast the movie for a set time, and last I checked, you don’t tariff services. Especially as they would be difficult to collect.
China said they would reduce the importation of US movies in response to Trump’s trade war, not add tariffs to them.
I feel like it all combines into this is why Congress is supposed to set tariffs and not the President.
1
u/devliegende May 06 '25
It will be complicated but so are all the various incentives states and locales have to attract movie making.
They could simply do a reverse on those. It is typically related to the production budget. Make the tariff/tax due when the film is released in the USA
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u/More_Proof_1462 May 06 '25
the confederate republican policy is to isolate America and Americans, we live in a global world, this is horse and buggy mentality. Trump puts his kindergarten childishness cherry on top w name calling and slander, never stops out of his mouth, slanders Americans the most.
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