Wall Street slumps over Trump's latest tariff threat on films

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President Trump’s proposal to slap a 100% tariff on movies produced outside the U.S. reverberated across Wall Street markets Monday.

All three major New York stock indexes fell significantly in early trading after a recent run of gains, and major studios saw their shares fall after Mr. Trump late Sunday said foreign-made films were a “national security threat” and “messaging and propaganda.”

Netflix was down 5%, and Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery shares were both down 3% before Monday’s opening bell. Paramount and Comcast were down slightly, too.

Investors are anxiously awaiting a thaw in the China-U.S. trade war or trade deal with nations such as Japan and India, which decided to negotiate instead of retaliating against Mr. Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff plan.

Instead, Mr. Trump proposed a new round of levies aimed at the film industry. Mr. Trump said he was concerned about the loss of U.S. jobs as films are shot overseas.

“Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated,” he wrote on Truth Social.

“I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands. WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” he wrote.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the tariffs would be implemented or what aspects of films would be targeted by levies. For instance, unlike a toy or piece of machinery item, films aren’t a physical good that is brought into the country on a shipping container.

It was also unclear whether movies would be taxed simply for shooting scenes overseas — foreign landscapes may be essential to the visuals or plot of the film – or if the tariff would only apply to films that accepted financial incentives from favored filming locales like Canada, New Zealand and the U.K.

Some film industry groups say the foreign incentives have caused certain film jobs, including camera operators and other crew positions, to dry up in the U.S.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has pushed to increase funding for the state’s tax-incentive program, hoping to lure movie-making back to its traditional epicenter.

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