Gavin Newsom plots new $7.5 billion tax incentive scheme for Hollywood amid Donald Trump’s tariffs
California Governor Gavin Newsom has unveiled a plan for a $7.5 billion tax incentive for Hollywood film productions after President Donald Trump revealed plans to impose 100 per cent tariffs on non-US-made films.
Newsom announced the tax incentive on May 5th, telling Variety: “America continues to be a film powerhouse, and California is all in to bring more production here.”
He added: “Building on our successful state programme, we’re eager to partner with the Trump administration to further strengthen domestic production and Make America Film Again.”
Trump is now bringing his tariff plans to the film industry in an attempt to revive Hollywood, amid an era of “runaway production” in which projects are shifting base to more cost-effective shoot locations, including Canada, the UK, and mainland European countries.
Newsom is trying to work with Trump on the tax incentive, but it is uncertain whether the president will be willing to make the deal happen, given that on May 5th, he blasted the California governor for the current state of Hollywood.
Trump said: “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, y’know, Hollywood. Hollywood doesn’t do very much of that business.”
Trump deemed films made outside the US a “national security threat” not only for the negative economic impact they impose on the country’s industry, but also for the “messaging and propaganda” they bring to American audiences.
Newsom’s latest plans come after he suggested a previous increase to the California filmmaking tax incentive from $330 million a year to $750 million, in October last year prior to the presidential election. He indicated at the time that if elected, Kamala Harris may have supported a federal film incentive.
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