I think the leader of our nations has overstepped the boundaries of his allot power by our Constitution of our Country. Or maybe I should put it another way, "HE" "THINKS he has power over reach that has been supported by his complying loyalists.
You call the people around Trump sycophants and authoritarians. But more than anything, they are idiots. It is like the administration of a middle school was turned over to the students. Our country is now run by evil imbeciles.
Your essay was brilliant -- up until the concluding paragraph, which I guess, was also intended to serve as the conclusion of your argument:
"Lots of people brush off these sorts of things as “distractions”—shiny objects Trump dangles to keep us preoccupied while he diabolically goes about the quiet, evil work of the administration. More and more I wonder whether we’ve got it backwards. There’s plenty of diabolical work being done, but Trump is happy to hand that off to the lackeys. These days, the main person Trump is interested in distracting is himself."
Please, Andrew, take a step backwards and reconsider what you are saying here. These distractions are absolutely of his making with the intentions all too transparent of taking our eyes off the "evil work" he is doing. (Please listen to Will Saletan's latest essay.) Let's not make excuses for this megalomaniac, maniacal president. It leads to defeatism. It leads to a failure to hold him accountable. Just because we have failed so far in doing so, we shouldn't give up the fight.
And, please, watch your own phrasing: "Lots of people" is echoing the mad, God-King. Who are these vague "lots of people," Andrew? Haven't you yourself asked that question of the maniacal president who would be God King?
To think that there was once a time when anyone who referred to a distracting "shiny object" most likely was referring to the decorative silver ball that rotated over a disco dance floor.
Ah, well, soon enough we'll all be doing our best to "Stayin' Alive" either because of economic collapse, a pandemic with no vaccine available, or the next civil war.
"The first: Trump is worse than he was eight years ago. The second: Those around him now are worse than those around him then."
He, and they, are "capable of doing worse" than they were 8 years ago. But they were, and are, at the core, evil cowards who are no different than they were 8 years ago. "They" were mostly disorganized, and not yet "around him," and thus, like him, unable to enact all the evil they wanted to. But "natural selection" took over, and one by one, all the ones who served as guardrails were replaced by the evil ones. Please read JVL's latest article about the mind-blowing hypocrisy of this evil cult.
It should come as no surprise that trump does and says anything that any other sane individual would not. Case in point, "...I rule the world" and, he believes it and thus proclaims as much and more by placing tariffs on everything from everywhere and now movies. I expect paintings to be next.
Simply, this narcissistic simpleton, surrounded by countless sycophants, will continue to rule through EO's until he crashes the U.S economy. Then and only then will the pathetic retrumplican quislings utter the powerful condemnation word of "disappointment". That'll send shivers down his spine and cause him think twice of his actions. NOT!
Trump is NOT a Narcissist. He is a PSYCHOPATH. Everyone seems to dramatically underestimate how very deeply Trump is disturbed. Trump is NOT stupid - he is deliberately trying to create chaos and suffering: things are not meant to succeed. People who say Trump is stupid are stupider than he. Tariff’s aren't "stupid," they're deliberately designed to bring about destruction and chaos. You're all being massively played by the Puppet Master. For fuck sake learn a little more psychology (including you, Bulwark commentators)!
No, his narcissism is a feature of the psychopathy. And being a psychopath is much more dangerous than being a narcissist. I fear that most people in this country, don’t understand how really severely mentally ill he is.
A reasonable reply, but to equate the two is to minimize the greater significance of his deadly psychopathy. My view is that his narcissism is a feature of the bigger picture of his being an extremely dangerous Psychopath. Most people don’t understand how deeply, deeply damaged he is.
He can be stupid and a sociopath. PS - I worked in NYC for 40 years. Trump LOST MONEY on a casino. In business where we work, if you cannot manage a business with a relatively stable income stream, you are a fool. I also knew the underwriter at another large insurer who reviewed Trump's request for a loan (a private placement). The proposed deal was all smoke and mirrors (per my colleague). Trump has honed brashness and an ability to lie but he is still not really that smart.
He knows how to lie in every way imaginable. We can see that in every interview, every rally speech, every tweet he writes. He obfuscates with sheer genius sometimes. It is why he can manipulate such a vast number of enthusiastic voters: They want to hear the promises (all lies) he makes because such promises offer them (false) hope, (false) support, (false) reassurance, (false) flattery that they matter to him.
You make excellent points. However, my central position is that people think he’s doing stupid things with the economy with the misbelief that his crazy ideas are supposed to work in someway.
Trump isn’t conducting himself in a stupid way with the economy because he intends to destroy the economy and bring the country down.
His genius is making everybody think that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but they miss the larger point: that he is a very, very dangerous psychopath. He wants things to fail because he’s fundamentally also a Sadist.
I feel it’s misleading to refer to him as simply a sociopath or a narcissist.
Films are considered to be “services”, not “products”. Services are not subject to tariffs. I don’t expect the uneducated buffoon of a president to know this. - An employee of the movie industry
I just want to make this prediction here: J. D. Vance will soon jump on the impeachment and/or 25th Amendment train. Not because he cares about his country, but because of his ambition. Vance will quietly lobby Republican representatives and senators, as well as the cabinet, behind the scenes with things like "The old guy ain't looking too good, is he?" Vance will work to convince people that Trump is losing it, and they need new blood--him. Vance will then be among the group who visits Trump at his desk with a pen to sign his resignation.
This will be preceded by his meeting with 3 witches: "Hail POTUS!" followed by Usha's inviting Trump and his minions to a quiet dinner.
Vance's first speech: I come to bury Trump, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them;. The good is oft interred with their bones;. So let it be with Trump.
You read it here first. Well, actually, you read it in Shakespeare first.
Vance doesn't have he courage, unless Trump strokes out, à la Stalin. And if that happens, he's less likely to end Trumpism than to try to take it over.
Vance wants to be President. He now knows that Trump will not endorse him as his successor. So what's the best way to become President? Get Trump out of office.
All he has to do for the 25th Amendment is promise Noem the VP. To get the Senate for impeachment, he can promise Thune the VP if he can rally 10 Republican votes. (I don't think getting the House would be a problem.)
And then there's Asha standing behind him saying "Screw your courage to the sticking place, and we'll not fail."
Of all the people who quote-tweeted The Donald’s statement on tariffing foreign-produced films, I would wager few have worked in major film production or understand the practical effect of different locales competing for filming and production work.
As constituted, the series of subsidies has created a “race to the bottom” where state or province A proposes a rebate of let’s say 25% which in the short term encourages a film to be made there. Without the necessary local talent, experience film workers move to said area. Then state or province B enacts a rebate of 35%, so the next film or TV project relocates. As before a dearth of local talent, requires film workers to pull up stakes from state A, and move to province B. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
Such a scenario primarily benefits the Hollywood studio who are able to purchase film work at greatly reduced cost. States or provinces that offer subsidies benefit at most temporarily. Rather than cultivating a long term filmmaking community, a state or province buys work for a short time, until studios move to a more lucrative location.
Workers become high-knowledge migrants moving from locale to locale as dictated by the financial incentives offered to studios. Local residents see their tax dollars directed to huge media conglomerates so their elected leaders can pose for photos with film stars, meanwhile creating nothing of permanent value to their community.
Yes, the idea of placing tariffs on film sounds ridiculous emanating from dumb-dumb’s rotting pumpkin head. Still, even the village idiot can manage to brain-fart out a kernel of truth.
Sonny asks “How or what form a tariff would take ?” The answer is countervailing tariff in amounts equal to the production subsidies foreign governments provide to lure film production overseas or north of the 49th parallel (Canada).
This is not recent idea. Circa 2011 or so a group of post-production artists led by the then-anonymous blogger VFX Soldier retained a law firm to explore legal remedies to counteract the cycle of ever-increasing rebates and subsidies paid to Hollywood studios to film or bring post-production work, e.g. visual effects and CG animation to the locales including Vancouver, Montreal, London, Australia, and New Zealand.
Such a move does nothing to limit where a film is shot. Locations can be chosen for what the can offer in terms of scenery, local talent and infrastructure, and even competitive wages. But the outright bribes are not unlike China subsidizing the manufacture of solar panels such that domestic producers are put out of business
A good primer is the short film “Life after Pi” which can be found on YouTube. It chronicles the bankruptcy of pioneering LA-based VFX company Rhythm and Hughes, which won the Academy award for their work on “Life of Pi” only to be forced to layoff most of their employees two weeks later due to extreme financial duress.
You should have mentioned that a 100 Tariff on foreign movies will result in relataroy Tariffs from other countries on US films, and that will deeply ijmpact US studios ouverseas income, which , frankly, they cannot survive without.
Besides background on what is not a new story, the above post also explores how The Donald latched onto the idea of applying tariffs to motion films.
I’ll close with a comment to the above post which states better than I can how many film-workers feel:
<quote>
Reading comments on this elsewhere online, it’s deeply disheartening to see that many Californians and people who claim to live in LA or be in the LA film industry still have no idea what has actually happened to the CA film industry. I can’t count the number of misinformed comments I’ve read about how LA just needs to be cheaper, with no clue about the real economic forces at play.
Most people don’t seem to even know about the subsidies, they think all this talk is about putting a tariff on foreign films, or films that shoot on location when the story calls for it. They immediately reject it because it’s coming from Trump, and make insane comments about how it’s going to make movie tickets cost $200. The execs have been absolutely masterful at keeping subsidies so under the radar that even 15 years later people have no clue what’s happening right under their nose.
I have no idea how much Trump actually has any clue about any of this. Like you, I’m not a supporter and have never voted for him for all of the reasons. I’m skeptical we can trust him to follow through – but I will say that even though I too left the industry to get away from this mess – I felt a small sliver of hope today, happy that after all of the effort we all put into this pre-2014 that someone was finally noticing. And whether or not he follows through with legal action, that it appeared to spark REAL counter-measures in California was also encouraging.
I’m still of the belief tax payers shouldn’t need to be asked to foot the bill for this, and it would be better to try to end the predatory practices of the international rebates through a (correctly implemented) tariff. But at this point the impact of this cancer has metastasized well beyond affected workers in vfx and the impact is now visible on the local economy – so it might just be the time is right.
I did not mention a 100% tariff on foreign films or what effect that would have precisely because I am not advocating tariffs at that level nor even across the board tariffs.
Rather I wrote this:
<quote>
The answer is countervailing tariff in amounts equal to the production subsidies foreign governments provide to lure film production overseas or north of the 49th parallel (Canada).
</quote>
A film would only be tariffed if the film’s producers took advantage of foreign production credits and subsidies and only up to the amount equal to the subsidies/credits received.
You speak of the risk of retaliatory tariffs without realizing that foreign production subsidies are the inciting act, and countervailing tariffs are the means by which formerly US-based film workers receive redress.
Unfortunately no. For starters, almost none of the US-based visual effects vendors are unionized. Yet more importantly, unions afford a group of workers to bargain collectively with their employer. In the battle against various governments subsidizing film production, vendors are on the same side as their workers. It is the motion picture studios that bid out work to vendors that both receive the government subsidies, as well as deciding where to send the work.
The Hollywood studios are the major beneficiaries of film subsidies offered by various Canadian provinces, London, New Zealand, etc.
Taxpayers in those regions really don’t see much benefit to film work locating there. Unlike a large manufacturing operation, film production is ephemeral. Hollywood studios can and will shift production to which every locale will pony up the most free money.
The short film “Life After Pi” (watch here: https://youtu.be/9lcB9u-9mVE?si=VZzGdQZvhsGdKe8k ) offers a good explanation of how film subsidies work, and the strain they put on visual effects vendors and the artists and developers who must either pick up and move to follow the work or leave the industry.
Now in my 50s, having seen it in release in June 1992 (and many times since), I've always loved Tim Burton's Batman Returns, a twistedly dark and darkly funny and kinky fairy tale that eschews the comic book continuity in favor of an animator's personal art film (despite the cry of DC fanboys and the big studio budget). ANYWAY, why am I on about it now? Many years ago, I read that screenwriter Daniel Waters sort of kind of had then NYC blowhard evil clown Donald Trump in mind when he created the new-to-the-film character Max Schreck (named after the original Nosferatu actor). I've always watched it with this in mind, and since 2016, it's taken on a whole new meaning and pertinence. And I find myself writing more in my own head than whatever Waters did in the actual screenplay -- is Max's son Chip, Barron ("Great white dope" per the Penguin)? Donald treated his first two sons more like the Cobblepots treat their son Oswald in the film. And Max's power plant, a power plant in name only, actually stealing and stockpiling power from Gotham City... does crypto now fit in here somehow? There is a line when Max is surrounded by Gotham press, not answering the questions they want answered, a reporter yells out "Freedom of the Press!" And Max replies, "Give the Constitution a rest. It's Christmas." Except now, it's Christmas year-round, even while tariffs will kill the fun. And, why I thought of this today, Max's center of operations, his office and HQ, sit atop Schreck's Department Store. We really need a Selina Kyle Catwoman now to stick some spray paint into microwaves and blow it up. And then use a taser in the manner she does on Max at the end of Returns.
I think the leader of our nations has overstepped the boundaries of his allot power by our Constitution of our Country. Or maybe I should put it another way, "HE" "THINKS he has power over reach that has been supported by his complying loyalists.
You call the people around Trump sycophants and authoritarians. But more than anything, they are idiots. It is like the administration of a middle school was turned over to the students. Our country is now run by evil imbeciles.
If all the little people must be limited to two dolls and five pencils, how about limiting the elites to $1 BILLION max in personal wealth???
Just asking questions...
Andrew,
Your essay was brilliant -- up until the concluding paragraph, which I guess, was also intended to serve as the conclusion of your argument:
"Lots of people brush off these sorts of things as “distractions”—shiny objects Trump dangles to keep us preoccupied while he diabolically goes about the quiet, evil work of the administration. More and more I wonder whether we’ve got it backwards. There’s plenty of diabolical work being done, but Trump is happy to hand that off to the lackeys. These days, the main person Trump is interested in distracting is himself."
Please, Andrew, take a step backwards and reconsider what you are saying here. These distractions are absolutely of his making with the intentions all too transparent of taking our eyes off the "evil work" he is doing. (Please listen to Will Saletan's latest essay.) Let's not make excuses for this megalomaniac, maniacal president. It leads to defeatism. It leads to a failure to hold him accountable. Just because we have failed so far in doing so, we shouldn't give up the fight.
And, please, watch your own phrasing: "Lots of people" is echoing the mad, God-King. Who are these vague "lots of people," Andrew? Haven't you yourself asked that question of the maniacal president who would be God King?
To think that there was once a time when anyone who referred to a distracting "shiny object" most likely was referring to the decorative silver ball that rotated over a disco dance floor.
Ah, well, soon enough we'll all be doing our best to "Stayin' Alive" either because of economic collapse, a pandemic with no vaccine available, or the next civil war.
"We have a megalomaniac surrounded by sycophants and authoritarians. This will not end well."
The silver lining is that it will not end well for them too.
"The first: Trump is worse than he was eight years ago. The second: Those around him now are worse than those around him then."
He, and they, are "capable of doing worse" than they were 8 years ago. But they were, and are, at the core, evil cowards who are no different than they were 8 years ago. "They" were mostly disorganized, and not yet "around him," and thus, like him, unable to enact all the evil they wanted to. But "natural selection" took over, and one by one, all the ones who served as guardrails were replaced by the evil ones. Please read JVL's latest article about the mind-blowing hypocrisy of this evil cult.
It should come as no surprise that trump does and says anything that any other sane individual would not. Case in point, "...I rule the world" and, he believes it and thus proclaims as much and more by placing tariffs on everything from everywhere and now movies. I expect paintings to be next.
Simply, this narcissistic simpleton, surrounded by countless sycophants, will continue to rule through EO's until he crashes the U.S economy. Then and only then will the pathetic retrumplican quislings utter the powerful condemnation word of "disappointment". That'll send shivers down his spine and cause him think twice of his actions. NOT!
Did anyone anywhere on TB today even mention Judge Howell's ruling on Friday in favor of Perkins Coie? Seems like kind of a big deal.
Trump is NOT a Narcissist. He is a PSYCHOPATH. Everyone seems to dramatically underestimate how very deeply Trump is disturbed. Trump is NOT stupid - he is deliberately trying to create chaos and suffering: things are not meant to succeed. People who say Trump is stupid are stupider than he. Tariff’s aren't "stupid," they're deliberately designed to bring about destruction and chaos. You're all being massively played by the Puppet Master. For fuck sake learn a little more psychology (including you, Bulwark commentators)!
"Trump is NOT a Narcissist. He is a PSYCHOPATH."
False Dichotomy. He can be both.
No, his narcissism is a feature of the psychopathy. And being a psychopath is much more dangerous than being a narcissist. I fear that most people in this country, don’t understand how really severely mentally ill he is.
Hi Dudley,
A reasonable reply, but to equate the two is to minimize the greater significance of his deadly psychopathy. My view is that his narcissism is a feature of the bigger picture of his being an extremely dangerous Psychopath. Most people don’t understand how deeply, deeply damaged he is.
He can be stupid and a sociopath. PS - I worked in NYC for 40 years. Trump LOST MONEY on a casino. In business where we work, if you cannot manage a business with a relatively stable income stream, you are a fool. I also knew the underwriter at another large insurer who reviewed Trump's request for a loan (a private placement). The proposed deal was all smoke and mirrors (per my colleague). Trump has honed brashness and an ability to lie but he is still not really that smart.
A psychopath is much more dangerous than a sociopath. I worry that most people severely underestimate how severely mentally ill Trump is.
He knows how to lie in every way imaginable. We can see that in every interview, every rally speech, every tweet he writes. He obfuscates with sheer genius sometimes. It is why he can manipulate such a vast number of enthusiastic voters: They want to hear the promises (all lies) he makes because such promises offer them (false) hope, (false) support, (false) reassurance, (false) flattery that they matter to him.
Brilliant!
Hi Terry,
You make excellent points. However, my central position is that people think he’s doing stupid things with the economy with the misbelief that his crazy ideas are supposed to work in someway.
Trump isn’t conducting himself in a stupid way with the economy because he intends to destroy the economy and bring the country down.
His genius is making everybody think that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but they miss the larger point: that he is a very, very dangerous psychopath. He wants things to fail because he’s fundamentally also a Sadist.
I feel it’s misleading to refer to him as simply a sociopath or a narcissist.
Films are considered to be “services”, not “products”. Services are not subject to tariffs. I don’t expect the uneducated buffoon of a president to know this. - An employee of the movie industry
Is anyone else skeeved out by "beautiful baby girl who's 11 years old"?
"In a few years, I'll be dating her."
Ewwwwwww
See the last SNL "cold open": It's his latest idea for an Executive Order.
Trump has be adjudicated to have sexually assaulted a person in a Department Store.
I just want to make this prediction here: J. D. Vance will soon jump on the impeachment and/or 25th Amendment train. Not because he cares about his country, but because of his ambition. Vance will quietly lobby Republican representatives and senators, as well as the cabinet, behind the scenes with things like "The old guy ain't looking too good, is he?" Vance will work to convince people that Trump is losing it, and they need new blood--him. Vance will then be among the group who visits Trump at his desk with a pen to sign his resignation.
This will be preceded by his meeting with 3 witches: "Hail POTUS!" followed by Usha's inviting Trump and his minions to a quiet dinner.
Vance's first speech: I come to bury Trump, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them;. The good is oft interred with their bones;. So let it be with Trump.
You read it here first. Well, actually, you read it in Shakespeare first.
Vance doesn't have he courage, unless Trump strokes out, à la Stalin. And if that happens, he's less likely to end Trumpism than to try to take it over.
And Vance has only as much power as Trump Chooses to give him.
And If Vance se seen as trying to out Trump, the MAGA Morons will turn on Vance very quickly.
Vance wants to be President. He now knows that Trump will not endorse him as his successor. So what's the best way to become President? Get Trump out of office.
All he has to do for the 25th Amendment is promise Noem the VP. To get the Senate for impeachment, he can promise Thune the VP if he can rally 10 Republican votes. (I don't think getting the House would be a problem.)
And then there's Asha standing behind him saying "Screw your courage to the sticking place, and we'll not fail."
I could be Vance's Stephen Miller!
Judas wore eye liner too. It's easy to spot the Rat
Of all the people who quote-tweeted The Donald’s statement on tariffing foreign-produced films, I would wager few have worked in major film production or understand the practical effect of different locales competing for filming and production work.
As constituted, the series of subsidies has created a “race to the bottom” where state or province A proposes a rebate of let’s say 25% which in the short term encourages a film to be made there. Without the necessary local talent, experience film workers move to said area. Then state or province B enacts a rebate of 35%, so the next film or TV project relocates. As before a dearth of local talent, requires film workers to pull up stakes from state A, and move to province B. Wash, rinse, and repeat.
Such a scenario primarily benefits the Hollywood studio who are able to purchase film work at greatly reduced cost. States or provinces that offer subsidies benefit at most temporarily. Rather than cultivating a long term filmmaking community, a state or province buys work for a short time, until studios move to a more lucrative location.
Workers become high-knowledge migrants moving from locale to locale as dictated by the financial incentives offered to studios. Local residents see their tax dollars directed to huge media conglomerates so their elected leaders can pose for photos with film stars, meanwhile creating nothing of permanent value to their community.
Yes, the idea of placing tariffs on film sounds ridiculous emanating from dumb-dumb’s rotting pumpkin head. Still, even the village idiot can manage to brain-fart out a kernel of truth.
Sonny asks “How or what form a tariff would take ?” The answer is countervailing tariff in amounts equal to the production subsidies foreign governments provide to lure film production overseas or north of the 49th parallel (Canada).
This is not recent idea. Circa 2011 or so a group of post-production artists led by the then-anonymous blogger VFX Soldier retained a law firm to explore legal remedies to counteract the cycle of ever-increasing rebates and subsidies paid to Hollywood studios to film or bring post-production work, e.g. visual effects and CG animation to the locales including Vancouver, Montreal, London, Australia, and New Zealand.
Such a move does nothing to limit where a film is shot. Locations can be chosen for what the can offer in terms of scenery, local talent and infrastructure, and even competitive wages. But the outright bribes are not unlike China subsidizing the manufacture of solar panels such that domestic producers are put out of business
A good primer is the short film “Life after Pi” which can be found on YouTube. It chronicles the bankruptcy of pioneering LA-based VFX company Rhythm and Hughes, which won the Academy award for their work on “Life of Pi” only to be forced to layoff most of their employees two weeks later due to extreme financial duress.
You should have mentioned that a 100 Tariff on foreign movies will result in relataroy Tariffs from other countries on US films, and that will deeply ijmpact US studios ouverseas income, which , frankly, they cannot survive without.
Although mostly dormant for the last years, the blog VFX Soldier covered the issues affecting US-based visual effect companies and domestic employees.
Yesterday, the blog published an update:
https://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/2025/05/05/will-president-trump-make-vfx-great-again/
Besides background on what is not a new story, the above post also explores how The Donald latched onto the idea of applying tariffs to motion films.
I’ll close with a comment to the above post which states better than I can how many film-workers feel:
<quote>
Reading comments on this elsewhere online, it’s deeply disheartening to see that many Californians and people who claim to live in LA or be in the LA film industry still have no idea what has actually happened to the CA film industry. I can’t count the number of misinformed comments I’ve read about how LA just needs to be cheaper, with no clue about the real economic forces at play.
Most people don’t seem to even know about the subsidies, they think all this talk is about putting a tariff on foreign films, or films that shoot on location when the story calls for it. They immediately reject it because it’s coming from Trump, and make insane comments about how it’s going to make movie tickets cost $200. The execs have been absolutely masterful at keeping subsidies so under the radar that even 15 years later people have no clue what’s happening right under their nose.
I have no idea how much Trump actually has any clue about any of this. Like you, I’m not a supporter and have never voted for him for all of the reasons. I’m skeptical we can trust him to follow through – but I will say that even though I too left the industry to get away from this mess – I felt a small sliver of hope today, happy that after all of the effort we all put into this pre-2014 that someone was finally noticing. And whether or not he follows through with legal action, that it appeared to spark REAL counter-measures in California was also encouraging.
I’m still of the belief tax payers shouldn’t need to be asked to foot the bill for this, and it would be better to try to end the predatory practices of the international rebates through a (correctly implemented) tariff. But at this point the impact of this cancer has metastasized well beyond affected workers in vfx and the impact is now visible on the local economy – so it might just be the time is right.
</quote>
I did not mention a 100% tariff on foreign films or what effect that would have precisely because I am not advocating tariffs at that level nor even across the board tariffs.
Rather I wrote this:
<quote>
The answer is countervailing tariff in amounts equal to the production subsidies foreign governments provide to lure film production overseas or north of the 49th parallel (Canada).
</quote>
A film would only be tariffed if the film’s producers took advantage of foreign production credits and subsidies and only up to the amount equal to the subsidies/credits received.
You speak of the risk of retaliatory tariffs without realizing that foreign production subsidies are the inciting act, and countervailing tariffs are the means by which formerly US-based film workers receive redress.
Isn't this what the unions are for?
Unfortunately no. For starters, almost none of the US-based visual effects vendors are unionized. Yet more importantly, unions afford a group of workers to bargain collectively with their employer. In the battle against various governments subsidizing film production, vendors are on the same side as their workers. It is the motion picture studios that bid out work to vendors that both receive the government subsidies, as well as deciding where to send the work.
The Hollywood studios are the major beneficiaries of film subsidies offered by various Canadian provinces, London, New Zealand, etc.
Taxpayers in those regions really don’t see much benefit to film work locating there. Unlike a large manufacturing operation, film production is ephemeral. Hollywood studios can and will shift production to which every locale will pony up the most free money.
The short film “Life After Pi” (watch here: https://youtu.be/9lcB9u-9mVE?si=VZzGdQZvhsGdKe8k ) offers a good explanation of how film subsidies work, and the strain they put on visual effects vendors and the artists and developers who must either pick up and move to follow the work or leave the industry.
Now in my 50s, having seen it in release in June 1992 (and many times since), I've always loved Tim Burton's Batman Returns, a twistedly dark and darkly funny and kinky fairy tale that eschews the comic book continuity in favor of an animator's personal art film (despite the cry of DC fanboys and the big studio budget). ANYWAY, why am I on about it now? Many years ago, I read that screenwriter Daniel Waters sort of kind of had then NYC blowhard evil clown Donald Trump in mind when he created the new-to-the-film character Max Schreck (named after the original Nosferatu actor). I've always watched it with this in mind, and since 2016, it's taken on a whole new meaning and pertinence. And I find myself writing more in my own head than whatever Waters did in the actual screenplay -- is Max's son Chip, Barron ("Great white dope" per the Penguin)? Donald treated his first two sons more like the Cobblepots treat their son Oswald in the film. And Max's power plant, a power plant in name only, actually stealing and stockpiling power from Gotham City... does crypto now fit in here somehow? There is a line when Max is surrounded by Gotham press, not answering the questions they want answered, a reporter yells out "Freedom of the Press!" And Max replies, "Give the Constitution a rest. It's Christmas." Except now, it's Christmas year-round, even while tariffs will kill the fun. And, why I thought of this today, Max's center of operations, his office and HQ, sit atop Schreck's Department Store. We really need a Selina Kyle Catwoman now to stick some spray paint into microwaves and blow it up. And then use a taser in the manner she does on Max at the end of Returns.
Orange as Pope: The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."
Six business bankruptcies for practice. Now the whole world.
June 14 is also Flag Day.