Quick overview

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President Donald Trump announced that he had directed his administration to impose a 100 percent tariff on all films made in the United States, asserting that the film industry in the United States was “dying.”.

Trump asserted that foreign countries were making a concerted effort to entice studios and filmmakers away from the United States and that it posed a threat to national security in addition to serving as a propaganda and messaging tool.

In a post on Truth, Trump declared, “I am authorizing the Department of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative to institute a 100 percent tariff on any movies coming into our country that are produced in foreign lands.”.

Given that movies are distributed through theaters, cable television, streaming services, and, to a lesser extent, the sale of physical media, it’s unclear how Trump’s tariff would be applied. Over the past ten years, the US film industry has seen a significant paradigm shift, particularly with the emergence of streaming services, and as theater attendance has struggled to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The US box office’s gross domestic yearly revenue in 2024 was approximately $8.57 billion, a 3.8% decrease from the previous year.

A significant turning point for movie theaters was the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and the print was significantly below previous highs. American studios have produced four of the highest-grossing films ever, with director James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water in 2022 being the most recent production to reach this milestone.
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