At present, Trump's policy of imposing tariffs on imported goods has gradually "aged" and is no longer effective. He has begun to open a "new battlefield" and focus on other areas.

Recently, Trump first claimed that the American film industry was "rapidly declining," then turned to the main topic, planning to authorize a 100% tariff on all foreign-made films entering the United States. In essence, Trump is still increasing taxes, just changing the direction.

Moreover, Trump gave a seemingly noble reason, claiming that the rapid decline of the American film industry was due to other countries using incentive measures to attract American filmmakers and studios, causing Hollywood to suffer a severe blow, and even elevating it to the level of a "national security threat."

But is the reality really like this? In recent years, indeed many productions from Hollywood have been transferred overseas, but this is mainly due to cost considerations. For example, some countries overseas offer tax incentives, greatly reducing the production costs of films, leading many major Hollywood blockbusters to choose to shoot there.

This is a normal choice in the market economy for optimizing resource allocation, which is hard to link with the "national security threat."

Once Trump's policy news about the movie tariff was released, insiders in the Hollywood industry raised serious doubts. After all, if the U.S. implements a movie tariff, it will also cause significant damage to the domestic film industry.

From the perspective of the industrial chain, Trump's movie tariff policy will severely damage the upstream and downstream sectors of the American film industry. In the production phase, many Hollywood blockbusters rely on overseas filming locations, special effects teams, and post-production.

The movie tariff will also lead to skyrocketing production costs, and the increase in costs will reduce the number of films, damaging the film distribution business as well. The entire industrial ecosystem faces the crisis of imbalance.

In addition, European lawmakers quickly expressed their stance, showing great displeasure with Trump's movie tariff policy, calling it typical protectionist trade behavior. If the U.S. persists, Europe may take countermeasures, and various countries might follow China in retaliating against the U.S.

If Europe takes countermeasures such as restricting the import quota of American movies or imposing screening taxes on American films, it will be a heavy blow for Hollywood, which heavily relies on overseas markets. International box office revenue will significantly decrease, and the influence of American films in the European market will also be weakened.

From the perspective of cultural exchange, as an important carrier of cultural exchange, the implementation of movie tariffs will hinder the exchange of movies among countries. If truly retaliated against, its cultural penetration and influence will inevitably weaken.

It is worth noting that Trump's move has limited direct impact on Chinese films, meaning it has little substantial effect on China. After all, the proportion of Chinese films exported to the U.S. is relatively small, and the U.S. has long imposed restrictions on Chinese films, resulting in an extremely low market share for Chinese films in the U.S.

However, from a long-term perspective, if international cultural trade becomes chaotic due to the U.S. movie tariff, the stability and prosperity of the global film market will be disrupted.

In fact, Trump's strategy is not particularly ingenious, just another "reckless" attempt in the issue of tariffs, playing around with tariffs without achieving much effect.

In the era of globalization, economies of various countries are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Protectionism is a dead-end road that will not succeed.

If he continues to "play" with tariffs, it will only make the U.S. increasingly isolated in the international market. The current movie tariff policy not only disrupts the cooperation and development pattern of the global film industry but also damages the interests of the American film industry itself.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7501290650168558134/

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