When Your President Is an Idiot
The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death. 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. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, 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!
While America has a substantial trade deficit in goods, much of this is moderated by a sizeable trade surplus in services. This includes intellectual property, higher education, financial products, corporate profits, and pertinent to this discourse, entertainment, which includes films. Trump mused that films, produced outside of the country, should and shall be tariffed at 100%.
If a nation institutes tariffs on a specific category of items, foreign nations will do likewise. Therefore, it seems insensible to do so on a category in which that nation already enjoys a sizeable trade surplus. Certainly, Trump’s exorbitant tariffs on China are premised on the argument that what China exports to America is thrice that which America exports to China.
Some of the appeal of a film is the exotic locale in which it is shot. Indeed, no American film could be shot in a jungle without tariff penalty if Trump goes through with his threat. While the streets of Paris or the port of Lisbon might be feasibly duplicated in a Hollywood backlot, it is doubtful that any such replication would seem genuine. Moreover, the expense and effort in duplicating that which already exists is folly.
Some poor writer’s room will have to start working on the next season of Emily in Paris under the new title Emily in Albuquerque.
The first company that came to mind, which would financially suffer, should this silliness persist, was Netflix. It produces, sponsors, or purchases many films for its foreign audiences with hope of leveraging some of that for subscribers back home.
I expected that the share price of Netflix would take a hit in the morning, which it did (4% decline). The extent of the decline, however, was not so significant, and it recovered half the loss by day’s end. I suspect, based upon a pattern of precedent, that investors believe that Trump will reverse himself, yet again, after saner minds explain how counterproductive it is to America’s egoistic self-interest. This will be just another bout of sound and fury, signifying little.
But assuming that Trump should live that long, the United States and the world must endure these non-stop Through the Looking Glass absurdities for another 3.5 years. American foreign policy may have recently been operating on the principle, “Let them hate so long as they fear” (Lucius Accius). But can one really fear an amateur clown and a laughingstock of a nation?