As the international cinema industry descends on the southern French city of Cannes for the world's biggest film festival, one hot topic will no doubt be US President Donald Trump's threat to impose 100 percent tariffs on foreign-made productions.
Trump announced last Sunday that he was directing relevant government agencies to "immediately begin the process of instituting a 100 percent tariff on any and all movies coming into our country that are produced in foreign lands".
In a post on his Truth Social network, he added in capital letters: "WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!"
Trump claimed Hollywood was being "devastated" by other countries' "incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States," which he called a "national security threat" and "propaganda".
Trump's move appears to target a business model favoured by American studios and filmmakers who obtain subsidies or tax breaks to film in countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, Hungary, Spain and Australia.
These countries benefit in turn from jobs generated by the filming for local industry workers, and tourism revenue.
Many US blockbusters are partially or entirely filmed outside the country, including some of the Marvel and James Bond movies and, most recently, Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning – which is due for its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday.
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Hollywood in trouble
While Trump's idea is divisive, there is widespread agreement that the US movie industry is in dire straits.
Hollywood is a major sector of the country's economy, generating more than 2.3 million jobs and $279 billion (€266 million) in sales in 2022, according to the latest data from the Motion Picture Association.
But Hollywood has struggled to get back on its feet since the strikes by actors and writers that shut it down in 2023. The number of filming days in Los Angeles hit a record low in 2024, excluding the total shutdown in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Industry professionals reacted with a mix of scepticism and a degree of support to Trump's suggestion of tariffs.
Deadline magazine quoted one Hollywood movie financier as saying he agreed with Trump's goal of having more movies filmed in the US. "But obviously the need is for rebates, not tariffs. Tariffs will just choke the remaining life out of the business," they were quoted as saying.
Some unions for actors and other media and entertainment workers, such as SAG-AFTRA, said they were awaiting more details on Trump's plan but supported the goal of increasing home-grown production.
But others pointed out that even if a system could be devised to impose tariffs, this would do more harm than good to the US industry.
"The result of that would be to reduce production, to increase the cost of movies, to reduce the number of movies available for movie theatres and streamers to show, which would damage the distribution side of the business," entertainment lawyer Jonathan Handel told French news agency AFP.
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Reactions around the world
Outside of the US, there are serious concerns over what the introduction of these tariffs could mean.
The Canadian Media Producers Association said in a statement earlier this week: "The proposed actions outlined in US President Donald Trump's announcement will cause significant disruption and economic hardship to the media production sectors on both sides of the Canada-US border."
A survey of studio executives revealed that Canada ranked twice in their top five preferred production locations for 2025 and 2026, due to competitive tax incentive schemes on offer.
Bernard Larivière, who heads a film technicians union in the province of Quebec, told AFP a third of their members work on US productions.
"Major productions made from A to Z in the United States are rare," said Evelyne Snow, a spokeswoman for a Canadian film technicians' union, in an interview with the daily La Presse. "An American production in Montreal supports 2,000 people, from the cameraman to the limousine driver."
So-called "Aussiewood" has for years used generous tax breaks and other cash incentives to lure foreign filmmakers, producing a string of hits for major Hollywood studios including The Matrix, Elvis and Crocodile Dundee.
"The collaboration is a good thing. So, let's not get in the way of that," Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong told national broadcaster ABC.
For its part, the UK government said that it would take a "calm and steady approach" to Trump's latest proposed tariffs amid ongoing bilateral trade talks.
The British Film Commission, the government's investment agency, called the move "concerning" but added it hoped to continue "a strong, shared history of film-making" with the US.
However, Kirsty Bell, chief executive of production company Goldfinch, told UK news agency the Press Association that the move could leave UK freelancers in the film industry "jobless".
French film industry
France, which is hosting the 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, is wary of the US position, but considers itself safer from the effects of any tariffs than other countries due to its state support system.
In an interview with France Inter radio on Wednesday morning, France's Culture Minister Rachida Dati said that Trump's film tariffs, if implemented, would lead to "the American industry being penalised, not ours".
France produced 231 films last year and recorded an increase in cinema admissions compared to 2023, while other European countries and the US saw a decline, industry figures showed.
"I hope this system [of promoting French film-making] will endure," the head of the Cannes film festival Iris Knobloch told French news agency AFP this week. "The good health of the French film sector shows that this system is working well," she added ahead of the festival which opens next Tuesday.
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But the director of the French Film Commission, Gaëtan Bruel, sounded alarm bells last month, saying Europeans must "prepare for any eventuality" in the face of "a possible American offensive against our model" of state support for culture.
France has a complex mix of taxes, quotas and levies on film and TV distributors that help funnel money into the national film sector, making it Europe's cinema powerhouse.
Some American directors and film studios, as well as streaming giants Netflix and Amazon, have lobbied the Trump administration to push back on EU legislation designed to protect and promote European film-making.
In a memo published by the White House on 21 February, Trump took aim at what he called "overseas extortion" – with a particular mention of laws that "require American streaming services to fund local productions".
"On the other side of the Atlantic, powerful players in this industry are hostile to the French cultural exception," Dati said.
Even though major US studios saw their shares plunge immediately after Trump's announcement, the White House said no final decision on foreign film tariffs had been made.
It said in a statement: "The administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump's directive to safeguard our country's national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again."
Follow all the news from the 2025 Cannes Film Festival with RFI.
(with newswires)
