Plus top TV series from The Night Manager to the Mallorca Files even Bollywood blockbusters and Mallorca hosts a major international film festival, the Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival, which attracts some of America’s finest actors and filmmakers - never mind being home to the legendary actor Michael Douglas and his wife Catherine Zeta Jones.
Sandra Lipski, Evolution Mallorca International Film Festival Founder & Director told the Bulletin: "I think Trump is going to ruin the entire film industry infrastructure if this goes into effect. It is important to know the details. For example, the new Christopher Nolan film was filmed half in the UK and in Los Angeles; would that mean only 50% will get taxed?
"Trump said, "WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!" But by tariffing foreign films, he is not influencing productions in the US. The right approach to bring film shoots back to the US would be to offer higher incentives. This is the reason that so many film shoots left the US: because it is too expensive to shoot in the US. Not so long ago, Mel Gibson said it was cheaper for him to fly an entire crew to Europe and pay for accommodation for a three-day shoot than it was to film for one day in Los Angeles. The root problem here is not foreign films but non-existing US incentives. Classic Trump, always blaming the rest of the world when the problem lies right in his backyard."
However, now the Spanish film industry now faces a new threat. U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday announced a 100% tariff on movies produced outside the country, saying the American movie industry was dying a “very fast death” due to the incentives that other countries were offering to lure filmmakers. “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Trump said he was authorising the relevant government agencies, such as the Department of Commerce, to immediately begin the process of imposing a 100% tariff on all films produced abroad that are then sent into the United States. He added: “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on X: “We’re on it.”
Neither Lutnick nor Trump provided any details on how the tariffs would be implemented.
It was unclear if the tariffs would apply to movies on streaming services as well as those shown in theaters, or if they would be calculated based on production costs or box office revenue. Hollywood executives were trying to sort out details on Sunday night. The Motion Picture Association, which represents the major studios, had no immediate comment.
In January, Trump appointed Hollywood veterans Jon Voight, Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson to bring Hollywood back “bigger, better and stronger than ever before.” Movie and TV production has been exiting Hollywood for years, heading to locations with tax incentives that make filming cheaper.
Governments around the world have increased credits and cash rebates to attract productions and capture a greater share of the $248 billion that Ampere Analysis predicts will be spent globally in 2025 to produce content.
All major media companies, including Walt Disney, Netflix and Universal Pictures, film overseas in countries such as Spain, Canada and Britain. On Monday, leaders in Australia and New Zealand responded to Trump’s tariff announcement by saying they would advocate for their local industries. Some Marvel superhero movies have been filmed in Australia, while New Zealand was the backdrop for “The Lord of the Rings” films.
In 2023, about half of the spending by U.S. producers on movie and TV projects with budgets of more than $40 million went outside the U.S., according to research firm ProdPro. Film and television production has fallen by nearly 40% over the last decade in Hollywood’s home city of Los Angeles, according to FilmLA, a non-profit that tracks the region’s production.
The January wildfires accelerated concerns that producers may look outside Los Angeles, and that camera operators, costume designers, sound technicians and other behind-the-scenes workers may move out of town rather than try to rebuild in their neighborhoods. A ProdPro survey of executives found California was the sixth most preferred place to film in the next two years, behind Toronto, Britain, Vancouver, Central Europe and Australia.
Hollywood producers and labor unions have been urging Governor Gavin Newsom to boost the state’s tax incentives to better compete with other locations. Trump’s proposed movie tariff follows a series of trade conflicts initiated by his administration, which have roiled markets and led to fears of a U.S. recession. Former senior Commerce official William Reinsch, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said retaliation against Trump’s film tariffs would be devastating.
“The retaliation will kill our industry. We have a lot more to lose than to gain,” he said, adding it would be difficult to make a national security or national emergency case for movies.
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If Mallorca is serious about cutting down the number of tourists that visit, then cutting down (probably banning) film making on the Island should be part of the solution. The more films that are made on the island, the greater the marketing exposure, the greater the demand to visit from the foreign tourist they wish to deter. Mallorca needs to decide what’s really important to them, and that one can rarely have one’s cake and eat it!