President Donald Trump is once again floating plans to enact tariffs on films shot outside of the United States, prompting a response from two California Democrats with close ties to Hollywood.
California Sen. Adam Schiff, who is based out of Burbank, and Rep. Laura Friedman, who now holds Schiff’s House seat, released statements on Monday calling such tariffs a bad idea while urging Trump and lawmakers to instead get behind a federal film tax credit to provide another layer of financial incentives for productions made in America.
“I’m relieved President Trump recognizes that we are losing a signature American product: the domestic film & TV industry. However, his 100% tariff on foreign films will raise costs for consumers,” Friedman said. “As the representative of nearly every major producer in Hollywood and a former film producer, I know what will work, without harming consumers: a national film tax credit. It’s working in California and it will work across the country.”
Schiff, who made a name for himself during Trump’s first term as one of his loudest critics, made an appeal for bipartisanship to try to get the tax credit past the conceptual stage.
“I strongly support bringing movie-making back to California and the U.S. Congress should pass a bipartisan, globally competitive federal film incentive to bring back production and jobs, rather than levy a tariff that could have unintended and damaging consequences,” he stated. “We have an opportunity to pass a major federal film tax credit. I’m ready to work with this administration and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get it done.”
So far, the only federal legislation with regards to film and TV production with any noticeable traction is a bipartisan bill introduced in August to renew Section 181, an addition to the federal tax code introduced in 2004 that allows productions to count the first $15 million in production costs towards tax deductions and would raise that cap to as much as $40 million.
But a full federal tax credit passing through Congress seems extremely unlikely at this stage with a government shutdown looming. Democrats are demanding that Republicans agree to healthcare funding extensions in order to sign on to fund government services.
As for Trump’s tariffs, his Truth Social announcement of a proposed 100% tariff on “any and all movies that are made outside of the United States” echoes a similar sentiment he shared back in May that led to a discussion of such a move among Hollywood’s studios at a Motion Picture Association meeting.
How exactly such a tariff would be implemented on an immaterial good such as films has not been clarified by The White House, whom TheWrap has reached out to for comment.
The legality of such a tariff is also unclear as two amendments passed in 1988 and 1994 to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which Trump cites as the basis for his authority to enact sweeping tariffs, explicitly excludes “informational materials” and other forms of media from the president’s tariff authority.
