President Donald Trump announced Sunday “immediately starting the process of establishing customs duties by 100 %” on the films broadcast in the United States, but produced abroad.
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“The American film industry is dying very quickly (…) Hollywood and many other regions of the United States are devastated,” said Trump Trump on his Trum Social network.
“Other countries offer all kinds of incentives to attract our filmmakers and studios away from the United States,” he said.
According to him, it is a “concerted effort on the part of other nations”, representing “a threat to national security”.
Donald Trump has opened several investigations to the “national security effects” from various imports ranging from semiconductors to crucial minerals since his return to the White House.
This survey is a necessary first step which could allow the American president to publish an imposing decree of customs duties on these products if it is shown that their import volume represents a risk to national security.
No details have yet been given on the conditions for applying surcharge on films produced abroad.
This is a new escalation in the commercial offensive launched by the American president against the economic partners of the United States.
China, against whom Donald Trump concentrates a large part of his arrows, had announced in early April that it would reduce, “moderately”, the number of American films officially broadcast on its territory, one of its responses to prohibitive customs duties imposed by the United States on its products.
Beijing limits, by a system of quotas, the number of foreign films officially broadcast in its cinemas. A reduction in access to this market, the second in the world behind the United States for cinema, could cut the recipes of Hollywood studios.
