Donald Trump’s latest policy stunt, a proposed 100% tariff on all foreign-made films, is designed to appear as a patriotic gesture at first glance. Trump frames the issue as a “national security” concern, claiming that Hollywood productions are “betraying” their home countries when they organize filming in Canada, the UK, or even my native country, Hungary. He is wrong.
The MAGA spirit is all about America being more self-sufficient, a political message that has swept Europe and the US, only this time it’s not about the usual industries of steel, oil, and cars. It’s about entertainment, culture, and creativity. Oddly, it’s a protectionist play for an industry and zip code most hostile to President Trump’s agenda.
We now know that actor Jon Voight claims to have proposed the idea to Trump as a way to save Hollywood from job loss and declining profitability, but it would set back the American entertainment consumer and Hollywood. Shoots aren’t taken abroad for fun, it’s the standard practice for budgeting out smaller productions.
In the era of streaming, smaller productions churned out at an exceptionally high rate are the lifeblood of platforms like Netflix, Paramount, HBO, and Hulu.
The world film industry is now global. Studios are shooting where production is cheaper, where there are reliable professionals, and where the tax system is favorable. This is not “treason”, it is rational business. Budapest, Vancouver, Prague, or London do not attract film shoots because they want to destroy Hollywood, but because they have been professionally servicing international productions for decades.
Creatives who want studios to take a risk on their projects have to have budget-friendly solutions when LA, Georgia, and North Carolina don’t work out.
If Trump somehow imposed tariffs on these films, the first to understand will be the American viewer. A blockbuster budget is already over a hundred million dollars, and a double tariff is guaranteed to make production more expensive. Studios will either postpone projects, cut down on quality, or, most likely, raise the price of movie tickets and streaming subscriptions.
Maybe Trump can get away with suggesting two baby dolls per child, but that won’t go over well with people’s streaming subscriptions, a bill they stare down monthly.
American audiences will have access to less content and fewer original, fresh, internationally inspired stories.
Trump’s policy suggestion from Jon Voight would be a blow to the global competitiveness of the US film industry. The studios would lose their room to maneuver. If you think Hollywood plays it too safe right now with sequels and never-ending superhero franchises, this would encourage studios to double down.
Paradoxically, Trump is also slapping one of his closest political allies abroad, Viktor Orbán, directly in the face. Hungary has grown into a film industry powerhouse, attracting the most prominent studios with world-class crews, excellent locations, and generous tax breaks, and the work of former Terminator 3 producer Andy Vajna, who was responsible for the Hungarian film industry. The Dune, The Blade Runner 2049, Moon Knight,and many others were all made in the Central European country.
Conservative media shop DailyWire+, led by Ben Shapiro, was producing its fantasy series, The Pendragon Cycle, in Hungary and Italy. Why? To make an ambitious project more affordable. Conservative creatives looking to get around Hollywood liberals can’t distribute their content if the bank is broken on LA shoots.
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And who benefits from all this? The simple answer is nobody. Not the consumer, not studios, not Hungarians or American creatives. This duty is not an industry protection measure. It is a message that actually chills investment and stresses the stock market even more.
Trump likes to give simple answers to complex problems, but the film industry is not like a wall at the Mexican border. You can’t close it with tariffs, and you can’t ‘make it big’ with protectionism.
We can only hope that Trump’s Hollywood advisors, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight, rethink this policy before Howard Lutnick at Commerce tries to devise a way to implement foreign film tariffs.
Zoltán Kész is a former Hungarian MP and government affairs manager at the Consumer Choice Center. You can follow him @KeszZoltan.