US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has announced a 100% tariff on all films made outside the United States, stating on his Truth Social platform that Hollywood is being devastated and other countries are to blame.
Trump’s claim that “Hollywood is being destroyed” is no doubt primarily directed at us. A world leader in film and TV production, the UK is likely to be the main offender in his eyes. There’s little detail yet but, writing on X, his Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick replied: “We’re on it.”
It might sound like a scary film trailer tagline but the former reality TV star’s latest salvo in a tariff campaign he divines will make America great again could spell disaster for our film and TV industries.
Trump’s claim that the movie industry in America is dying a very fast death is based on a profound ignorance of how films are made and who reaps the profits. He blames other countries for offering all sorts of incentives, tax breaks, for drawing American filmmakers and studios away from the United States.
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It’s nonsense, of course. The reality is the US exports three times more movies than it imports. Trump is ignoring America’s film and TV trade surplus, again, and the fact that 20 US states, predominantly in the deep south, have their own lucrative tax legislation to attract film business.
It’s true, we’ve become a very attractive proposition. In the UK, the tax breaks are very generous, with relief of 34% of qualifying expenditure for movies, 53% for independent films and 39% for children’s TV programmes, animated films and animated TV programmes. Hollywood is hardly under attack. We provide a bonanza for American companies.
In 2024, 65% of total UK production spend, on film was accounted for by productions from the five major US studios, (Disney, Universal, Sony Pictures, Paramount and Warner Bros). The three major US steaming platforms, (Netflix, Apple and Amazon), also helped boost spending by 49% from the previous year.
Film and high-end TV production spend in the UK was £5.6 billion of which £4.8bn, 86%, was driven by major studios and global streaming platforms aka America.
US film and TV investment in Britain plc is good for growth and jobs, mostly in London and the south east. Little of it reaches Scotland. But what Trump fails, or doesn’t want, to understand, is it also pays huge dividends for the US, which are largely untaxed here. In 2023-24, Amazon paid just £18.7m on UK revenue of £27bn, that’s 0.07%.
Not only that. Most films and documentaries are made across borders and UK production talent is much in demand. But there’s still lots of writing, concepting and designing happening in the US. Besides, AI and TikTok are far bigger threats to Hollywood than we are.
Still, Trump wants movies made in America, again. But, like constructing cars and aeroplanes, movie making is now a global business, begging the question, just what is an American film?
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Take Mobland, a current Paramount+ hit. Co-produced (funded) by two American companies, created by an Irish screenwriter, with two huge British stars, (Tom Hardy and Helen Mirren), one Irish, (Pierce Brosnan), this high-end TV show is set and primarily filmed in London, with other scenes shot around England and in Belgium. Its crew is mostly British including director Guy Ritchie and a host of producers who watch the pennies and keep the show on the road.
Trump’s movie tariff mayhem might be negotiating bluster but if the rest of the world puts tariffs on US films in retaliation, this will only push up production costs and destroy jobs for movie making talent in the US. Also, streaming services like Netflix are likely to become more expensive everywhere, so expect your subscriptions to go up.
Unable to compete with US money and scale, our broadcasters and film producers are finding it increasingly difficult to secure funding and get films and high-end TV made.
Meanwhile, just a few days ago, Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (above), fearing damaging inward investment from the US, rejected widespread calls to introduce a 5% levy on the video streamers to finance a UK production fund for homegrown drama productions. Similar levies already exist in most European countries, fair and proportionate countermeasures, to boost local production including documentaries. It seems Trump wasn’t swayed or doesn’t care about this bid to keep on his good side.
Nandy’s decision, most likely the Treasury’s, will now have far more serious consequences for Scotland’s film and TV freelancers and production companies who are already struggling for survival. But it could be even worse.
Second only to construction, the creative industries contributed approximately £124bn in Gross Value Added to the UK economy in 2023. More than a third of that from came from film, TV and radio. If Trump’s latest decree becomes law, it won’t just mean fewer local stories on our screens, it will threaten this vital source of revenue, resulting in far less money to spend on our public services.
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