The Current - What Trump’s 100% tariffs would mean for Canadian film and TV

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump has promised 100 per cent tariffs on movies produced outside the United States — but no one is quite sure what that means. We look at what’s driving film and television productions out of the U.S., and what tariffs would mean for workers here in Canada.

1942, Europe. Soldiers find a boy surviving alone in the woods. They make him a member of Hitler's army. But what no one would know for decades, he was Jewish. Could a story so unbelievable be true? I'm Dan Goldberg. I'm from CBC's personally, Toy Soldier. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current Podcast. US President Donald Trump's fondness for tariffs had a new focus over the weekend, the film

industry. In a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump promised 100% tariffs on movies produced outside the United States, complaining that the domestic film business was being devastated. A White House spokesperson later clarified that no final decisions had been made, but the administration is exploring all options to make Hollywood great again. And on Monday, Trump was asked to explain his plans. Our film industry has been decimated by other countries taking them out and also by incompetence like in Los Angeles, the governor is a grossly incompetent man. He's just allowed it to be taken away from, you know, Hollywood.

Hollywood doesn't do very much of that business. They have the nice sign and everything's good, but they don't do very much. A lot of it's been taken to other countries. We'll hear how other countries like Canada and the industry here are feeling about all of this in a moment. But first, Katie Campion is a senior TV and labor reporter at the Hollywood News publication deadline. She is in Los Angeles, home of that sign.

Katie, good morning. Good morning, Matt., home of that sign. Katie, good morning. Good morning, Matt. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being here. There are many, many questions about what Donald Trump has said. But what do we know as of now about how serious this threat of 100% tariffs on films made abroad actually is? I think frustratingly, we don't know much yet about what Trump's exact plans are. As you heard, the White House is already sort of walking back statements made by Trump over the weekend about imposing 100% tariffs on any films made outside the US.

But it does appear that he is pretty serious about enacting some sort of plan. So at this moment, Hollywood is kind of in this wait and see period to figure out what next steps could be. Dumb question, but how do you tariff a movie? That's a great question, actually, not a dumb question. It's a conversation that's happening all over the entertainment industry right now because films are historically considered a service, not a good. You know, you don't load a film onto a ship and pick it up at a port.

And so to understand even how these tariffs could be imposed, at what point in the production pipeline they would be imposed, and if how you would, you know, impose evaluation on a film are all major, major questions that we have yet to answer. I'm not asking you to peer inside the brain of the US president, but do you have a sense as to where this idea is coming from? We do have a bit of a sense. I think as we've seen, tariffs are the president's favored response to anything that he considers a slight to American trade.

But we also know earlier this year that Donald Trump did appoint John Voight, Sylvester Stallone, and Mel Gibson as his special ambassadors to Hollywood. He tasked them with trying to figure out how to solve what we call runaway production that has kind of decimated the film and television industry in the US, physical production at least. And it appears that this did stem at least in part from some conversations that Donald Trump had at Mar-a-Lago with John Voight this weekend. We do have some clarity on what might have been presented to the president by John Voight. It appears to be much more extensive than just a broadly applied tariff.

So it's hard to tell at this point how much of that exact plan came from John Voight and how much of it is the president's own thinking. When you say runaway production, what does that mean? Does it mean productions that run away to countries like Canada? It does, it does. It's productions that are opting not to fill

in the United States for a number of reasons and move physical production outside in the United States for a number of reasons and move physical production outside of the United States. A lot of that is due to very lucrative tax incentives that are being offered by territories abroad. How serious is that? I had read a story in a different publication and it talked about, I wrote this down

because I found it fascinating, the cost of a seven person set operating team for a 30 day shoot in Budapest would be something like $59,000. It would cost you $53,000 for just one of those people if you were to shoot the production in Los Angeles. How does that math break down? Tell me more about what's going on that is causing those productions to leave the United States.

I think it's a multifaceted issue and there are several reasons why it's become untenable in many cases to keep physical production in the US. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that the United States has no federal tax incentive currently to compete with international territories, some of which are offering very lucrative incentives. The UK is offering as much as 40% rebates on qualified expenditures for film and television production and the United States doesn't have a response to that. Some individual states do, but nowhere near as lucrative either.

I think when you couple that with other costs that can balloon in terms of labor costs and permitting fees, which can not only be expensive, but very lengthy and not always very accommodating, it can oftentimes be much easier and much more financially feasible for a production to move to the UK or to Budapest. We saw a recent example of this. Rob Lowe was talking about on his podcast, how they film, Fox films his game show, The Floor, outside of Dublin in Ireland. And it's cheaper for them to fly American contestants, house them in Ireland, house Rob Lowe in Ireland and the production team there than it is to film on the Fox lot, which

is just down the street from me and down the street from Rob Lowe as well. And so I think that that's a great illustration of the moment we're in, in terms of productions finding much more financially savvy options abroad than they do here. So it's Donald Trump, right? That they mean Hollywood has the sign, but it doesn't have Hollywood anymore. So it's Donald Trump, right? That they mean Hollywood has the sign, but it doesn't have Hollywood anymore. I think that that's the general sentiment is that something needs to be done, something needs to change.

I don't know that anybody thinks that tariffs are the answer, especially tariffs in an industry like film and television where it's pretty clear that the US is the leader there. We have a positive trade balance in every major market in the world, with as many as 3.1 times the amount of exports that we have of imports in this industry. We produce billions of dollars in trade surplus, again, with every major market in the world. And so a tariff, I think, is, you know, pretty widely agreed upon to probably not be the answer here, but there is a problem to be addressed. Somebody was saying, I mean, if you enjoy Netflix,

good luck with that, because you could have two tiered Netflix. One is productions that are done outside of the United States, and maybe other people get to watch those shows, but Netflix spends a lot of money producing programs outside of the US. So if you wanna just watch the US ones, you may have slim pickings.

Yeah, you know, co-productions, especially in television, are becoming much more common, but most of the leading studios make a lot of their movies overseas as well. You know, Marvel is currently shooting the next Avengers film in London. Lucasfilm has moved much of Star Wars production to London. You have some major tent poles that we don't really have clear answers on how that would affect those either. It's interesting, just finally, Donald Trump, you heard in that clip, and yesterday when he was speaking with the Canadian Prime Minister was hammering the governor of California,

Gavin Newsom. Gavin Newsom has proposed the $7.5 billion tax credit to bring some productions back to LA. It seems like they agree on the need to do something. I think they do agree on the need to do something. I think that they're going to continue to likely butt heads on exactly how to solve the issue. California is right in the middle of its own battle to bring production specifically back to the

state because it has not only been competing with international territories, it's also been competing with other states in terms of trying to incentivize production. The governor has already proposed more than doubling the current cap on our own film and TV tax credit and in terms of modernizing that program as well to make it, remove some of the red tape and make it more feasible for productions to come back to California. So this is something that is already very high priority, we know for Governor Newsom and I see a world where there is a solution here that we could put our heads together and figure out.

But we do expect that if tariffs are imposed, honestly, almost in any form, they will likely be challenged by not just Governor Newsom, but many other lawmakers as well. Katie, good to talk to you about this. Thank you very much. Thanks so much, Matt. Katie Campion is a senior TV and labour reporter at the Hollywood News publication Deadline. She was in Los Angeles, California. Hey there, I'm David Common. If you're like me, there are things you love about living in the GTA and things that drive

you absolutely crazy. Every day on This is Toronto, we connect you to what matters most about life in the GTA, the news you gotta know, and the conversations your friends will be talking about. Whether you listen on a run through your neighbourhood or while sitting in the parking lot that is the 401, check out This Is Toronto wherever you get your podcasts. Simon Peacock is president of the Montreal chapter of the Actors Union ACTRA, the Alliance of Canadian Television and Radio Artists.

He spoke with Alison Brunette, host of the CBC radio show, Breakaway, about how even just talk of tariffs could hurt the film industry in this country. Since 2020, we've had hit after hit after hit really when COVID shut our industry down completely for a significant period of time. Then in 2024, we had the SAG-AFTRA and Rider strikes in the United States, which essentially shut down production right across North America, not just in the United States. We were hopeful that things were going to be starting to recover this year, that we're actually going to be seeing an improvement. But I think this is even if the tariffs don't come into place immediately, just the talk of them is going to have a pretty catastrophic impact on us. Because it creates doubt within our industry.

So producers are going to delay making any productions here in Montreal until they know exactly what's going to happen. They're not going to take the risk that those tariffs will be put in place. The moviemaking industry is a big one in this country. Film and TV productions brought in something like $10.4 billion for Canada in 2023. The distribution of movies brought in another $10.4 billion for Canada in 2023. The distribution of movies brought in another $1.7 billion. Noah Siegel's company does both marketing,

making and distributing films across this country. Noah is co-president of the Toronto based Elevation Pictures and he is in Toronto this morning. Noah, good morning to you. Good morning. What is the mood like in your industry given what Donald Trump said on the weekend? Uncomfortable. I think everybody in the world has been uncomfortable for 100 days,

but particularly right now for the film business, yes, it's been uncomfortable. How closely, I mean, you see this in big cities and small towns across this country, where productions are underway, streets would be blocked, you see the trucks parked, and the lights and the booms and more. How closely tied are the Canadian and American film industries? Well, like every other industry in North America, it seems that we're linked completely hand in glove.

Again, there's two businesses, right? There's a production service business, which is where the Americans come up and shoot their movies here, like Deadpool in Vancouver, for example. And that's a huge business, which is where the Americans come up and shoot their movies here, like Deadpool in Vancouver, for example. And that's a huge business. And it's a straight up industrial effort where they decide that they're going to come up and shoot.

And then the other side of the business, which is the Canadian content or co-production business, where we make our own stuff or we partner with other territories around the world to make stuff. And that's a smaller business, but a much more opportunistic business for Canadians. But together it's huge. And even those co-productions and Canadian content films are sold into the US and it's the biggest market in the world. So we really rely on that market as well.

And so if Donald Trump says he's going to make Hollywood great again and he's going to draw, as he is trying to do with the auto sector, draw production back to the United States, what would Canada stand to lose? Well, clearly like Katie alluded to on the surface, it's horrific for not just the United States, but everybody and specifically for

consumers in the United States. Because no matter what he does, if he imposes something like that, you're basically doubling the cost of all production, which means that, and the producers and the studios and the streamers don't do it for free. They do it as a business. So they'll pass on that cost to the consumer. So Netflix prices will go up for consumers and movie tickets will go up.

I mean, nobody wins. So the discomfort with regards to that is not good. That said, I think ultimately what people often forget, including Mr. Trump, is it's an idea business. It's a business built on entertainment generally, messaging, and all that stuff is built around something new and fresh. So he can try to impose all this stuff all he wants, but at the end of the day, American consumers watched squid games from Korea in droves, and that is absolutely anything but American, right? So they were looking for something fresh and special and somehow consumers find that fresh and special.

I mean, this is an industry, but it's an industry that is populated by people. Those productions come here for a bunch of reasons and there are tax credits and there are incentives, but also because the people who work in that industry are exceptional in this country and do extraordinary work. What do you think, what are they thinking? I mean, people who are right on the ground, I'll ask you about elevation in a moment, but the people who are there doing those productions, who are running the cables down the street

so that the production can happen, what are they thinking, do you think? Well, it's fascinating because you say that because it's actually a very fascinating business in that regard, different than most, because most businesses you like set up a factory and you just start making stuff. Whereas the film business,

every time you go to get a film off the ground, first there's that stutter step of making sure it's financed or ready to go, or got a green light from the studio, and then you crew up immediately, meaning you add all your staff and get them all in their positions, the keys, the top guys,

and then their underlings working for them. So in a sense, it's always been kind of a transient business. I think if you talk to people in Vancouver, oh, what are you doing today? Well, I'm going to the interior of BC to shoot a movie. Oh, what are you doing today, Mr. So-and-so in Toronto? Oh, I've got a show in Hamilton I'm shooting. So they're moving around constantly

and they're always looking for business and they're used to shifts. And I think Simon alluded to that in that comment earlier about, you know, you had COVID, which obviously challenged production like any other business, and then you had the strikes, which imposed challenges. So the people are basically been battered in the business, but they do it because they love it, because it's what they do for a living. And to a great extent, as you alluded to, they're artisans, right? These are folks that have a particular craft, not just, you know, I mean, you can say carrying cables, but some of them are production designers and directors of photography. They're very unique skill sets. And so to say, well, just get another job in another area, it's very concerning for them. Do you think it's possible to bring those productions back to the United States? He wants to make Hollywood great again. To, you know, to some extent he could. Again, I want to be clear and I understand the

problem they're facing and Katie alluded to it. It was a panacea for them for quite some time to make movies in the United States, but the world has shifted. The cost of production, the pressure has forced them to do all sorts of different things. And not just that, but again, as I alluded to before, finding talent that has a fresh voice, you go around the world to find that. You can't just keep finding it in the same place. So the world has become the oyster

of the entertainment business and it gobbles up everything. So he can repatriate some of it. And I understand why he'd want to do that. And it's not a bad notion because production may go where it's just cheapest, but it's not just that. Years ago, a friend of mine was producing Star Wars and I took my children to set in London and to see that enterprise, which was, I don't know, a thousand people working on a movie of that nature.

There are certain artists that you cannot find anywhere in the world but in London around those studios. So you can try to take things back. You won't take it all back. There's no way, it's impossible. Michael Prupas is the owner of Muse Entertainment and they make all sorts of movies, including smaller films that go directly to TV

and streaming like the Hallmark movies that you see around Christmas. Have a listen to what he thinks the impact could be and the impact that these American productions have on to your point, the Canadian creators who are working here in this country. I recently was producing a film that was directed by a British Columbia-based director

who had spent 20 years as a script assistant working on many of these smaller movies. Those kind of lower budget films gave her the opportunity to move up to become a very talented director. And we've seen that in many cases across Canada. The uncertainty that you hinted at and that we heard earlier as well as a real thing, and this goes across industries, but for an industry like yours, what are you thinking about? I mean, how do you start to pump the brakes a little bit thinking about the possibility,

even if it's vague, that these tariffs could come into place? For sure, both in distribution and production. I think this is the big concern, right? Our business is, I don't know if consumers understand, but essentially to notwithstanding the idea of writing a script that could take years, getting it financed, which could also take years, but usually takes a year,

and then you got to shoot the movie, usually takes a year to deliver. There's a lot of setups. So when you hear shoot the movie, usually takes a year to deliver, there's a lot of setup. So when you hear things like this, there's a stutter step, and that stutter step slows things down. And yeah, when you slow things down, the R word comes into play, recession, right? If there's any slowdown at all, it creates a ripple effect. So yeah, I think I'm leaving on Sunday to go to the Cannes Film Festival, and I can

imagine, and most of the acquisitions that happen at Cannes are pre-buys where films are sold based on the script and the packages of talent. Well, once again, like during the strike we're gonna be questioning whether those films can actually be made and that's not good for anybody. Not good for the business, not good for consumers. I have to let you go, but just briefly, I mean one of the things that you've said in light of this is that we're not looking for silver linings, but that there could be some benefit to Canadian production and Canadian creators in particular. What are you talking about there? Well, specifically, as I alluded to at the top of this conversation, there is a business

that we have where we make our own content and we also do co-productions with other territories, films like, well, I mean, let's start with television shows like Schitt's Creek is a great Canadian content show and movies that we've been involved in like Paw Patrol, which is a big hit or Blackberry or films we produced like Infinity Pool that Brandon Kronenberg made with Alex Skarsgard and Mia Goth. These films sold not just in Canada but internationally. And once again, I said this at the top that, you know, you can't stop squid games, you can't stop adolescents. Consumers all over the world want to see those shows, and those shows are not made in the

United States. So as Canadians, what we've done historically, which is fantastic, both federally and provincially, is set up subsidies and opportunities to invest in content that's made here. So as long as we keep investing in that, both by the governments and creating tax credits, et cetera, we're going to make content. And when we make content, there will be customers to buy it. We've got a successful business and Bill C-11 that was proposed in parliament was accepted and the CRTC is refining right now.

Could be a boon because it's going to force folks that are in the system like the streamers to put a little money back into the Canadian system. Thus, we'll develop our industry, build content, not just for us, but for everyone. I'm really glad to talk to you about this. Who would have thought? And again, the uncertainty kind of ripples right through the economic landscape. Noah, thank you very much for this. My pleasure, Matt. My pleasure. Noah Segal is Co-President of the Toronto-based Elevation Pictures. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.