In a post yesterday (May 4) on his social media platform TruthSocial, U.S. president Donald Trump announced his intent to implement 100% tariffs on films produced outside of the U.S.

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote in Sunday’s post. “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!”

His post has since sent shockwaves through the global screen industry, although it is currently unclear how tariffs will be implemented. Previous tariffs from the U.S. have had an indirect effect on the Canadian screen industry, given they are targeted at Canadian goods, not services.

Today, White House spokesperson Kush Desai told The Hollywood Reporter that “although no final decisions on foreign film tariffs have been made, the Administration is exploring all options.”

That uncertainty is par for the course for the Canadian screen industry since the implementation and continued threats of specific tariffs from the U.S. placed on essentially every country in the world. Telefilm Canada noted it “is closely monitoring the situation and collaborating with industry partners” should the tariffs be implemented. The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) reflected on this in its own statement, saying that it is unclear which productions will be affected or if it will expand to include series.

“We cannot allow the U.S. to devastate the Canadian film and television industry,” said WGC executive director Victoria Shen. “More than ever, we need to protect our creative industries which are crucial to our culture, identity and sovereignty as a nation.”

The potential tariffs are something that Kelly Wilhelm, strategy consultant and head of the Cultural Policy Hub at OCAD University, tells Playback Daily the government now has to take into account when providing financial packages for affected industries or renegotiating trade deals. In fact, should this hostility toward the global screen industry continue, she predicts the possibility of a movement away from the cultural exemptions to tariffs Canada has enjoyed in past deals such as the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

“It’s a social media post by the president, and we don’t know what it means. We don’t know how implementation will look. We don’t know who it affects,” says Wilhelm. “So like a lot of things, in this moment, I think we need to stay calm and develop an approach that’s going to work for our industry here in Canada.”

Whether or not these tariffs are truly implemented, in whatever form that may take place, the situation has changed “irrevocably,” she says.

“While specific details are far from clear at this point, the proposed actions outlined in U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement will cause significant disruption and economic hardship to the media production sectors on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border,” said Canadian Media Producers Association president and CEO Reynolds Mastin in a statement today (May 5).

“Yesterday’s announcement, and the uncertainty it has caused, underscore the incredible importance of ensuring that Canada has a strong, independent domestic media industry. We look forward to making this case at the upcoming CRTC C-11 hearings later this month.”

Should they be implemented, the effects would be “apocalyptic,” according to Wilhelm, especially for service production in Canada. According to the 2024 Profile report, there were 444 foreign location and services projects in Canada in 2023-24, 386 of which came from the U.S. One impact Wilhelm discussed was a cooling effect on production companies in the short-term as they wait to determine the outcomes of any tariff policy, which perhaps means not moving forward with projects they were otherwise going to.

The Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) also called on the Canadian government to protect its cultural industries in the wake of the tariff threat. “This is more than a trade dispute — it’s an attack on the livelihoods of Canadian performers and creators,” said Eleanor Noble, ACTRA national president in a statement.

“My big takeaway is that for the president to be this clear on the film industry, even in a social media post, means that the creative industries are clearly not exempt from this trade negotiation, and they are very much at play,” says Wilhelm. “That is a clear signal we need to pay a lot of attention to.”

For Wilhelm, that means looking away from the U.S. to strengthen ties with creative industries in other countries, as well as domestically, to enable the Canadian government to be as equipped as possible in protecting our film and television business.

“It’s the time for us to really define much more clearly what those export markets and coproduction markets look like, and where the sales could be,” says Wilhelm. “So it’s not just about business relief, necessarily. It’s about changing our content support system in this country to enable creators to make their work and make money doing it.”

More to come…

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