Trump Wants to Tariff the Heck Out of Fast X: Part 2

ABLUpdated 2 weeks Ago2 Mins read4

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING,” Donald Trump posted to his Truth Social account on Sunday, May 4, citing not the influx of superhero movies, dearth of romantic comedies, or whatever the hell Death of a Unicorn was (to say nothing of the waning tradition of the theatrical experience) but the fact that “other countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw filmmakers and studios away from the United States.” He’s not exactly wrong: A number of studio films are made abroad in Great Britain, Bulgaria, Australia, and New Zealand, to name a few countries that offer tax incentives. As if kicking Temu and Shein while they’re down weren’t enough, Trump announced his intent to put 100 percent tariffs on “any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.” He went on to say that he considers this a threat to national security, but the insecurity in question is probably more of a feeling that our cities aren’t beautiful enough to warrant movies being shot here.

Trump now says he’ll tariff foreign films — declaring them a national security threat: pic.twitter.com/LKhdgSnLS3

— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) May 4, 2025

Trump’s fascination with Hollywood has been long-documented, but Politico reports that an anonymous White House source credited the new tariff concept to none other than Jon Voight, an actor and one of the president’s “special ambassadors” to Hollywood. To Voight’s credit, his last two films were Reagan and Megalopolis, both of which were shot and produced in the United States.

What will this mean for globe-trotting, big-budget summer blockbusters like Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, Jurassic World Rebirth, From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, or just about any movie with a colon in its title? Possibly double the cost to bring the movie to theaters here, which means if you thought popcorn was expensive now, just wait until you see the prices of next year’s Imax releases. The question on everyone’s mind, however, is will this actually save the dying movie industry? Well, the same weekend Trump announced that the movie industry is dying, his administration also rescinded a number of National Endowment for the Arts grants given to nonprofit cinemas. If this all means we see less of the London Eye in big-budget movies, then it’ll probably be worth it in the end. It’s not as if we’ve ever seen Tom Cruise sprinting past the Gateway Arch.