Trump’s Hollywood tariff threat is already unraveling

President Trump’s trade war had, until Sunday night, centered on goods — cars, toys, food, clothes, the tangible stuff we put in and out of virtual and physical shopping carts.

President Trump’s trade war had, until Sunday night, centered on goods — cars, toys, food, clothes, the tangible stuff we put in and out of virtual and physical shopping carts. But those goods make up less than a quarter of the American economy. The bigger chunk of our economic pie is known as services — think Google, Netflix, Facebook, the plumbing of the internet, banking, insurance. And, yes, Hollywood films, the industry Trump now thinks needs saving with — you guessed it — tariffs! ICYMI: Trump wrote on Truth Social late Sunday that he was directing the government 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.” (Watch out, Hayao Miyazaki — your days of flooding the American market with mystical whimsy and childlike wonderment are over.) Of course, Hollywood studios (and anyone thinking about it for more than a few seconds) were left scratching their heads over how such a tax would work. As we’ve come to expect with Trump 2.0, it’s not clear whether the president is serious. Jon Voight, who serves as one of Trump’s Hollywood Ambassadors, said Monday that he met with Trump recently to discuss “certain tax provisions that can help the industry – some provisions that can be extended and others than could be revived or instituted.” But that sounds like mostly incentives, not tariffs. In other words, Voight recommended a carrot and Trump announced a stick. California Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday appeared to prefer a gentler approach, calling on Trump to work with California to create a $7.5 billion federal tax credit for the movie and television industry. Currently, tax incentives are exclusively the realm of states and municipalities.