Trump proposes 100% tariff on films.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 14 minutes.

This Friday.

As news consumers, we are often captivated by stories that disappear just as soon as they arrive — stories that feel like they will have a major impact on our country or the planet before simply fading away. We’ve been reflecting on our coverage from the past five years, identifying stories like this that we covered once or twice, felt like they could reshape our lives, and then… didn’t. And we’re asking: What ever happened to that? 

This Friday, we’re revisiting the 2021–22 baby formula shortage, which was framed as a major threat to infants across the U.S. We’ll consider the state of the issue today, what we’ve learned in the years since, and how the media’s coverage of the shortage has aged.

Quick hits.

1. President Donald Trump announced the United States would halt its strikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, claiming that the group told the U.S. that “they don’t want to fight anymore.” (The announcement)
2. President Trump hosted Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney at the White House, where the leaders said they would continue discussing a new trade relationship. Carney also pushed back on Trump’s recent allusions to Canada becoming the 51st state, saying the country “won't be for sale — ever.” (The meeting)
3. The Supreme Court permitted the Trump administration to enforce its ban on transgender troops serving in the military while an appeals court hears a challenge to the order and the high court deliberates whether to take the case up. (The decision)
4. India fired missiles into Pakistan, targeting several locations it said were linked to militants who carried out last month’s mass shooting in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir. Pakistan said at least 26 people were killed in the strikes, and its prime minister called the bombings an “act of war.” (The latest)
5. The Trump administration reportedly plans to transport a group of immigrants to Libya on a U.S. military plane, which could depart as soon as Wednesday. (The report)

Today's topic.

Tariffs on foreign films. On Sunday, President Donald Trump announced that he will authorize the Department of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative to institute a 100% tariff on movies produced in foreign countries. “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!,” Trump posted to Truth Social. “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”

“We’re on it,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick posted on X later that evening. 

The U.S. film and TV industry provides an estimated 2.3 million direct and indirect jobs, according to the latest Motion Picture Association economic impact report from 2023, accounting for a $15.3 billion trade surplus with other countries. However, Hollywood television and movie production has declined in recent years, as wildfires, Covid work-stoppages, increased permitting fees, and a 148-day writers’ strike have caused production costs to increase in California. Before his inauguration in January, Trump asked actors Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, and Sylvester Stallone to address these challenges as “special ambassadors” to the entertainment industry. Voight said the plan he presented to the president calls for “tariffs in certain limited circumstances,” as well as incentives for domestic-made movies.

In response to President Trump’s tariff announcement, California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) proposed a $7.5 billion tax credit program to incentivize more domestic production in the film and TV industry. “America continues to be a film powerhouse, and California is all in to bring more production here,” Newsom said. “Building on our successful state program, we’re eager to partner with the Trump administration to further strengthen domestic production and Make America Film Again.”

The Trump administration has not responded to Newsom’s offer, which is broadly representative of an approach favored by industry professionals in Newsom’s home state. Foreign governments have also offered tax credits and rebates to bring productions to their countries, capturing a greater portion of the estimated $248 billion global content-production market in 2025.

Film executives are uncertain about how a tariff on a digital good would be collected, if it would apply to co-produced films, and how the plan could circumvent a World Trade Organization moratorium on taxation of digital trade. “Nobody knows [how the proposal would work], and I don’t suspect we will for a while,” said one high-level film industry executive. “Is it on domestically funded foreign productions? Is it on foreign funded ones? Is the tariff on film revenues or film costs on those projects, or both?” 

In a statement on Monday, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said that “no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made.” President Trump also expressed hesitation about the decision. “I’m not looking to hurt the industry. I want to help the industry,” Trump said. “I want to make sure they’re happy with it, because we’re all about jobs.”

We’ll break down what the right, left, and entertainment industry writers are saying about the proposed film tariffs today — then, I’ll give my take.

What the right is saying.

• The right is mixed on the proposal, with some arguing it will help revitalize the film industry.
• Others say Hollywood’s problems are of its own making, and Trump shouldn’t try to bail them out. 

In RedState, Jennifer Oliver O'Connell said “Trump looks to launch [the] golden age of Hollywood.”

“Before President Donald Trump was inaugurated, he named actor-writer-producer Sylvester Stallone, director-producer-actor Mel Gibson, and actor Jon Voight as Special Envoys to Hollywood… This wasn't merely a symbolic gesture, and now Trump has taken it a step further. On Sunday, the president once again took to Truth Social to announce the second phase of this plan to Make Hollywood Great Again,” O’Connell wrote.

“Regulation, local restrictions, and the high cost of doing business in Los Angeles have driven Hollywood filmmakers out of the state of California, and some of them take the additional risk of filming overseas in order to get the job done. Just as Georgia and South Carolina have built-in incentives to attract film production to their borders, Trump is attempting to use tariffs as an incentive to keep film production within the borders of the United States,” O’Connell said. “The entertainment industry continues to wane, with fewer box office draws and streaming services removing the exclusivity of watching a film on the big screen. We will see how industry regulars weigh in on this latest Trump move to try to change this.”

In The American Spectator, Paul Kengor asked “why is Trump protecting Hollywood?”

“Modern Hollywood’s values are antithetical to what has made America great. Its values certainly run contrary to those of Trump supporters. The reality is that because of the leftist takeover of Tinseltown, conservative filmmakers have been forced to go abroad to make movies independently, having been blacklisted by the Hollywood Left,” Kengor wrote. “And here’s something that President Trump particularly needs to know: Another major reason for American filmmakers bolting Hollywood for greener pastures is that the taxes in California are so outrageous that the environment for making films there is cost-prohibitive.

“I know this from personal experience. Our 2024 Reagan movie was filmed in Oklahoma. It had to be made in Oklahoma because it could not be financially made in California. The tax rates busted the budget. We had to go to another state,” Kengor said. “That enormous tax burden was created by Democrats in California — politicians and their voters. Donald Trump’s movie tariff idea gets those Democrats (who despise him) off the hook. They will have no incentive to change their behavior. Hollywood’s liberal filmmakers and actors who complain about the high taxes on their movies will continue to do what they do: vote for the liberal politicians who slap them with the high taxes.”

What the left is saying.

• The left criticizes the tariffs but argue they’re unlikely to be implemented. 
• Some say Trump’s justification for the move is legally dubious. 

In CNN, Allison Morrow said “Trump’s Hollywood tariff threat is already unraveling.”

“As we’ve come to expect with Trump 2.0, it’s not clear whether the president is serious. Jon Voight, who serves as one of Trump’s Hollywood Ambassadors, said Monday that he met with Trump recently to discuss ‘certain tax provisions that can help the industry – some provisions that can be extended and others that could be revived or instituted.’ But that sounds like mostly incentives, not tariffs,” Morrow wrote. “If he is serious about foreign movie tariffs, though, Trump would be opening a new front in a war he has no real plan to win. And he’d be admitting to the world that his love of tariffs is not, as he’s long claimed, tied to some deep concern about trade imbalances but rather a desire to wield an economic cudgel.”

“Movies are not goods that travel in and out of ports — they are intellectual property that fall under the ‘services’ economy. To tax a movie like a good, the administration would have to clearly define what a movie’s value is, and determine how much overseas production would classify a project as an ‘import,’” Morrow said. “The goods/services distinction matters a great deal. Because for all of Trump’s outrage over the fact that America buys more goods from overseas than it sells, the US exports far more services than it imports… In fact, the US is the biggest exporter of services in the world. That gives our trade partners leverage they could use against us.”

In Politico, Ankush Khardori suggested the tariffs “are more than just political theater.”

“Hollywood immediately panned the idea and portrayed it as an existential threat to the U.S. film and TV industry. By early afternoon today on the East Coast, the White House seemed to back off… Trump’s threat, however, may prove to be more than just political theater,” Khardori wrote. “That is because the president’s claim — that there is some sort of 'National Security threat' to Hollywood — underscored the unprecedented legal position that the administration has taken to support the bulk of Trump’s proposed tariff regime across all sectors.”

“To support his tariffs, Trump had already declared emergencies concerning the opioid crisis, illegal immigration and — much more broadly — ‘trade deficits.’ Many independent experts generally reject these claims,” Khardori said. “But the notion that there might be a national security threat resulting from filmmakers producing their movies overseas seemed almost designed to draw attention to the novelty and expansiveness of the administration’s legal position. In fact, the Trump administration’s position would effectively provide the president with carte blanche to institute tariffs anywhere in the world at the drop of a hat.”

What the entertainment industry is saying.

• Some industry writers say the tariffs risk significant retaliation from other countries.
• Others suggest Trump has no clear means to implement the duties. 

In Bloomberg, Lucas Shaw wrote about how the tariffs could “impact Hollywood.”

“It’s not clear if he plans to tax movies that are shot overseas and finished in the US. That covers a lot of current Hollywood output. It’s also not clear if he plans to tax TV shows made overseas for international audiences but available in the US (aka much of Netflix’s catalog),” Shaw said. “Studios are producing more projects in countries such as Canada, New Zealand and the UK because it’s cheaper to do so. Many countries offer lucrative incentives and more favorable labor conditions. The cost of producing in the US spiked recently after domestic labor unions negotiated better terms for their members. The soaring cost of production is also why many shoots have left Los Angeles for markets like Georgia and New Mexico.

“The risk of any tariffs on foreign production is that they increase the likelihood that other countries retaliate. While a lot of physical production has moved abroad, the US entertainment industry has a positive trade balance with every market in the world, according to the Motion Picture Association,” Shaw wrote. “The business exports more than three times as much as it imports, the trade group says. No foreign-language film ranked among the 50 highest-grossing movies in the US last year. The 10 highest-grossing movies in the world last year were all released by US studios.”

In Vulture, Chris Lee asked “how would foreign-movie tariffs even work?”

“Studio executives, agents, and producers groused that the tariff plan was ill-conceived, lacking in details, and overall shitty for business. Arriving just days before what can often be a bustling acquisitions marketplace at the Cannes Film Festival, studio chieftains hastily organized war rooms to discuss implications surrounding the tariffs and ponder potential courses of action. Independent producers and sales agents agonized over what many of them see as an existential threat to their business,” Lee said. “Call it the fix for runaway production — that is, the catchall term for movie and TV projects intended for U.S. release that are filmed outside the country — that nobody in Hollywood wants.”

“Any C-suite studio exec will tell you: Import taxes are a kind of theoretical impossibility given the highly interconnected, international nature of modern moviemaking. Take this summer’s Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning. While nominally a Hollywood production — made by an American studio (Paramount) using American crews and showcasing the poster boy for American movie stardom, Tom Cruise — the movie is specifically plotted around international intrigue and was shot around the world,” Lee said. “In the absence of clear standards regarding what gets tariffed and how, the knock-on effect for globetrotting franchises such as James Bond and The Fast and the Furious would be devastating.”

My take.

Reminder: "My take" is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• Hollywood needs help, and I’m not surprised that Trump thinks they need tariffs (while Hollywood thinks it needs money).
• It’s hard to comment on this plan because I don’t know how it would even work.
• I’m a bit out of my lane on this topic, but I really don’t think tariffs work as a solution here.

Imagine for a moment that you are the president.

You ran your campaign on a specific brand of economic nationalism that prioritizes building out the American workforce and protecting famously American industries. You are looking out at the vast landscape of industries that used to be dominated by America and thinking, “how can I bring those back?” You’re evoking the kind of nostalgia that makes reopening Alcatraz and dumping federal dollars into coal mining feel innovative. You also happen to love tariffs. I mean really, really, really love tariffs. 

Now imagine you are Oscar-winning actor Jon Voight. The president — the one with American nostalgia coursing through their veins and, apparently, unlimited power to alter American industries with the stroke of a pen — wants your help. You’ve been named “special ambassador” to Hollywood, tasked with reinvigorating an industry that, for all kinds of complicated reasons, has been struggling to make money and maintain employment. You take this new role seriously. You spend months meeting with the stakeholders in the entertainment industry — executives, studios, streamers, unions, guilds, everyone you can imagine — gathering intel on the best path forward.

You draft a plan. You take that plan to Mar-a-Lago, with its Hollywood-esque nickname “Winter White House,” and you pitch the president on it. In the meeting, you mention all the various ways the president can help Hollywood. You make passing mention of tariffs. The president hears one of his favorite words, and before you know it a social media post promising “100% tariffs” on “movies” has upended the entire industry. This dynamites your plan, so much so that you are compelled to release the entire thing publicly just to make it clear that your months of research did not result in suggesting One Simple Trick To Save Hollywood.

In case you can’t tell, I’m having a little fun today. But… is that what happened here? It kind of seems like that’s what happened. Here’s the Hollywood Reporter:

[Voight’s] plan involves a combination of federal tax incentives, tax code changes, co-production treaties and infrastructure subsidies for theater owners, production and postproduction companies, according to a press release sent Monday by a representative for Voight and his business partner Steven Paul.

The release made only brief mention of tariffs, which Trump in a Sunday social media post said he would apply to productions produced outside the U.S. Voight’s plan involves ‘tariffs in certain limited circumstances’… 

The details from Voight come after a tumultuous 24 hours in which Trump announced a 100 percent tariff on films produced outside the U.S., before the White House walked that back a bit Monday morning.

Shares of Netflix, Disney and other media properties fell on the news, which — is that good? Are they the bad guys? I suppose they are. But they are also the biggest players in the space right now — the ones actually producing projects and employing people. So I don’t think it’s a good sign that the market reacted negatively to something designed to help their industry. 

For whatever it’s worth, every player in this production seems to be sticking to the script. Trump correctly identified that the entertainment industry is struggling, went to the industry to ask them what they needed, and guess what — they said they needed money. Tax incentives. Subsidies. Some other subsidies. And maybe a little more subsidies. 

I don’t think we should be surprised by that. If Trump decided to “bring back” any industry to its “golden age,” and then asked industry leaders what he could do for them, most union heads, executives, and seasoned employees would come back and say “could you please cut taxes and write checks?” That’s the rational, self-interested thing for them to say. It’s also unsurprising that The Tariffs President heard the industry’s woes and decided the medicine they needed was a dose of tariffs. Trump responded to an industry asking for tax incentives and subsidies by telling them where they can and can’t shoot movies, then flashed them a thumbs up. They gave him a thumbs down, so he started walking it back.

Still, I'm aware that I’m making assumptions about how this happened instead of giving my opinion on the policy — mostly because I have no idea how a tariff on movies would even work (or if there are currently tariffs on movies at all). It’s kind of like passing judgment on a policy to bring back newspapers by taxing people with websites. Can you even do that? How? From WIRED:

Tariffs, as Trump deploys them, are meant to make importing so financially unappealing that companies make their products in the US. Movies, however, aren’t cars or iPhones. They don’t come over on ships and get taxed at the port. Would the tariffs apply to foreign films acquired by US distributors? If a US studio makes a film but shoots a handful of scenes overseas, does that count? Would TV shows be included? Would new movies shot abroad, like the forthcoming Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning, find themselves getting a hefty bill if the tariffs went into effect down the line? Answers have not been forthcoming… In a Monday LinkedIn post, cinema analyst David Hancock wrote that it’s ‘quite hard to see what the US government can actually tariff.’ Frequently, films are digital files, and the rights to them are often split between creators, financiers, and other entities. 

This line of inquiry raises the essential question here. While Real American Patriots (like me) might appreciate all the excitement, it’s impossible not to question Trump’s methods. Even taking the argument that tariffs are the best way to help the industry, how would they even be enforced? How much of a film would need to be shot in the U.S. to avoid the duty? Would it apply to all parts of the production process? It's hard to seriously consider the proposal when the president seems not to have considered any of the practicalities. I don’t know the right solution to the film industry’s problems, but I suspect I’m not the only one tired of the bitter taste of Dr. Trump’s Miracle Tariff.

I know Hollywood is genuinely struggling — and many people with much more subject expertise than I have spilt a lot of ink about how to fix it (some more pointedly than others). The most compelling pieces I’ve read have focused on reforming streaming services’ business models, reducing production costs, and cutting regulations here in the U.S. (and in California specifically). Few of them include tariffs at all; even Voight didn’t see them as a critical part of his plan. And, just for the record, Hollywood has a massive trade surplus in the entertainment industry that this plan now threatens. 

Trump, as has been the case for weeks now, seems to be invigorated by all this — gaining steam with every announcement and pen stroke, raucously cheering as he watches the room tilt in every economic sector. To his credit, he does earnestly seem to want to help the industry — but if the plan is just more tariffs, then to borrow one of Trump’s phrases, the cure will be worse than the problem itself. 

Take the survey: What do you think of Trump’s proposed tariff? Let us know!

Disagree? That's okay. My opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback.

Your questions, answered.

Q: My verdict is still out on Tangle’s approach to news. I don’t think you are doing America any favors by pitting left and right against each other every day. It just makes each side hate each other a little more. I usually skip down to the “your take” section because I get pissed off when I read the side of the aisle that I disagree with. Do you think it is healthy for America to put left and right against each other every day?

— Donna from Columbus, OH

Tangle: Other than “why do you count Social Security as part of the federal budget,” some version of this question is probably the one we get the most from readers. Historically, our answer has been some version of this: We’re representing a spectrum that already exists and each side has spectrums within it we want to include. More importantly, thinking beyond the partisan binary requires you to clearly see where an argument comes from, which might reveal surprising agreements between the two sides, or between yourself and “the other side.” We present the arguments, not pit them against each other.

However, this question has always stuck with us. We’re the people who are trying to break down partisan barriers and encourage you to listen to arguments and perspectives different from your own. Aren’t we working against our mission by labeling “what the left and right” are saying? Why not give you the arguments for and against, or the people who are optimistic and pessimistic, or anything else depending on the day? Wouldn’t that help us better achieve our mission?

It’s a really good point, and it’s one we’ve never really been able to argue away. So we decided to try out some other ideas. You may have noticed that today’s newsletter featured a “what the entertainment industry is saying” section, which is part of this process. We’re constantly evaluating our approach and willing to try something new if it makes sense, so look out for different headers in our summaries section in the next few weeks.

Lastly, we’re also always willing to stop something new if it doesn’t make sense. A new approach would have its drawbacks, too — we want to be careful not to “both sides” an issue by giving you a “pro” and “con” when a 50/50 split isn’t representative of the spectrum of opinions, for instance, or unintentionally introduce our own subjectivity by categorizing ideas that don’t have clear borders. Still, don’t be shy about reaching out if you have any feedback for us as we tinker with the summaries section in our newsletter.

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Under the radar.

The final unresolved election from 2024 may be coming to an end. On Monday, a federal judge directed the North Carolina elections board to certify the results of the state Supreme Court election, in which Democrat Allison Riggs defeated Republican Jefferson Griffin in a race that was decided by less than 1,000 votes. The decision follows rulings by state appeals courts that questioned the validity of thousands of ballots from overseas military personnel and their family members who did not meet ID-documentation requirements when they voted, as well as absentee voters who checked a box on their ballot indicating that they have never lived in the United States. However, U.S. District Judge Richard Myers, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019, found that invalidating those ballots six months after the election would violate voters’ equal protection rights. Myers delayed his order for seven days to give Griffin the opportunity to appeal the decision. Fox News has the story. 

Numbers.

• $22.6 billion. The total value of exports from the U.S. film and television industry in 2023, according to the Motion Picture Association. 
• $15.3 billion. The total trade surplus for the industry in 2023.
• 6%. The percentage of the total U.S. trade surplus in services attributable to the film and television industry in 2023.
• +6.2%. The percent change in the number of shoot days in the greater Los Angeles area between Q4 2023 and Q4 2024.
• –31.3%. The percent change in the number of shoot days in the greater Los Angeles area between 2019 and 2024.
• 45%. The U.S. share of global film and TV production spending in 2024.
• –28%. The percent change in U.S. film and TV production spending from 2021–2024. 
• 19% and 18%. The United Kingdom and Canada’s share of global film and TV production spending in 2024, respectively.

The extras.

• One year ago today we wrote about a global wealth tax.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was NPR’s media bias report.
• Nothing to do with politics: A universal antivenom for snake bites could come from the blood of a man who has been bitten hundreds of times.
• Yesterday’s survey: 2,817 readers answered our survey on Trump’s executive order to pull funding for NPR and PBS with 46% opposing the principle and the order. “This type of action should come from bipartisan Congressional action,” one respondent said.

Have a nice day.

When an Englishwoman faced an ultimatum from an ex-partner — “me or the animals” — she chose the animals. Now, 90-year-old Barby Keel has rescued approximately 10,000, dedicating 54 years of her life to her 12-acre animal-rescue sanctuary, which she runs entirely on donations and volunteer work. Currently, Keel looks after more than 600 animals. “Some days I am shattered — it’s hard work,” she said. “But then I get a little nose ‘boop’ or a face peers up at me, and I remember why I’m doing this. My animals come first and always will.” Good News Network has the story.

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