‘Lacking in logic': The NZ screen industry reacts to Trump's 100% tariff on non-US films
Only 3.2% of The Spinoff's readership supports us financially. We need to grow that to 4% this year to keep creating the work you love. Please sign up to be a member today.
Donald Trump has announced that a 100% tariff will be put in place on all films made outside of the United States of America. 'The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,' he posted on social network TruthSocial. '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.'
Trump continued by saying that those filmmaking incentives, which would include the New Zealand Screen Production Grant, are 'a national security threat' that also amount to 'messaging and propaganda'. He then authorised the beginning of a process instituting a 100% tariff on 'any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands' concluding with this: 'WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!'
The announcement has potentially huge implications for Aotearoa. Our gross screen sector revenue is around $3.5 billion per annum, and a significant portion of that is from overseas productions. Since 2014, the New Zealand Screen Production Rebate has provided up to a 25% rebate to international screen productions shooting in Aotearoa, and has been accessed by such blockbuster American titles as Avatar: The Way of Water, M3GAN and The Meg.
A report evaluating the impact of the grant in 2018 found a net economic benefit of $336.1 million in its first three years alone. By 2022, it was found that productions accessing the rebate spent an estimated $5.2 billion in New Zealand, including on local jobs, hospitality, building and construction. 'This represents a significant investment into New Zealand's economy and far outweighs the cost of the rebate,' reads the Ministry of Culture and Heritage website.
So where does Trump's announcement leave all those US productions coming to our shores? Anne Murray, CEO of the New Zealand Film Commission, told The Spinoff that conversations were happening off the back of the announcement. 'We're in the process of speaking with our international partners about what the implications could be,' she said. 'We're mindful, however, this is an evolving situation and it's too early to speculate on what this could mean.'
Irene Gardiner, president of Screen Producers NZ (SPADA), found the wording of the announcement 'a little confusing'.
'He seems to be worried about US films being 'shot/post produced' in other countries, with the incentives that are offered,' she said. 'But then he talks about movies 'produced' outside of the US being subjected to tariffs.' She offers a local example: 'Does he mean NZ-produced movies like Tinā couldn't be released in the US without a tariff? Or does he mean American-produced movies that are shot here will be targeted?'
Regardless of where the tariff is directed, Gardiner says it would be 'a terrible shame' for the industry if implemented. Recent US productions on our shores include Heart of the Beast, a Brad Pitt film in Queenstown, and Florence Pugh's East of Eden in Ōamaru. 'We love having American productions working here – it's great for the economy and it's great for the screen industry. And we love our best NZ movies and stories being seen by American audiences.'
Local screen industry veteran John Barnett agrees that while there is concern out there, there's also a lack of clarity about how the tariff process would be carried out. 'Nobody knows whether it includes television content or streaming content, or at what point the tariff is actually going to take place,' he says. 'What is Trump going to do if M3GAN comes here and spends $200 million here? Is he going to charge them $200 million? And who's going to pay it?'
Nonetheless, Barnett understands why people would be feeling rattled. 'Right now US productions are the biggest source of of continual production in New Zealand – East of Eden was here for eight months and employed hundreds of people, or Cameron's Avatar films that had hundreds of people working for years,' he says. 'Then there's the post houses like Wētā FX who do a lot of finishing work – everybody will be trying to find out what that 100% means.'
At his post-cabinet press conference this afternoon, prime minister Christopher Luxon said that New Zealand was 'the best place to make movies in the world' but it was 'way too soon' to talk about whether the government would consider any changes to the screen rebate as a result of Trump's announcement. Paul Goldsmith, minister for media and communications and minister for arts and heritage, did not reply to The Spinoff's request for comment.
According to Trump's social announcement, the process has already begun to implement the 100% tariff. While the screen industry in Aotearoa awaits further detail, Barnett gently adds another point to consider. 'Not unlike everything else Trump has done, it is totally lacking in logic,' he says. 'If there's one thing we've learned in the first 100 days, is that what he says today isn't necessarily what he'll say tomorrow.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
1News
3 hours ago
- 1News
Wall Street falls after employers slash hiring and tariffs roll out
The US stock market had its worst day since May after the government reported a sharp slowdown in hiring and President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from a number of US trading partners. The S&P 500 fell 1.6%, its biggest decline since May 21 and its fourth straight loss. The index also posted a 2.4% loss for the week, marking a sharp shift from last week's record-setting streak of gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.2%, while the Nasdaq composite fell 2.2%. Worries on Wall Street about a weakening economy were heavily reinforced by the latest report on job growth in the US, employers added just 73,000 jobs in July. That is sharply lower than economists expected. The Labor Department also reported that revisions shaved a stunning 258,000 jobs off May and June payrolls. ADVERTISEMENT Markets also reacted to the latest tariff news. President Donald Trump announced tariff rates on dozens of countries and pushed back the scheduled effective date to August 7, adding more uncertainty to the global trade picture. "The market has been felled by a one-two punch of additional tariffs, as well as the weaker-than-expected employment data — not only for this month, but for the downward revisions to the prior months," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA. Trump's decision to order the immediate firing of the head of the government agency that produces the monthly jobs figures will only fuel the market's uncertainty, Stovall added. The surprisingly weak hiring numbers led investors to step up their expectations for an interest rate cut in September. The market's odds of a quarter-point cut by the Federal Reserve rose to around 87% from just under 40% a day earlier, according to data from CME FedWatch. The question now: Will the Fed's policymakers consider a half-point cut next month, or even a quarter-point cut sometime before their next committee meeting, Stovall said. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.21% from 4.39% just before the hiring report was released. That's a big move for the bond market. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed actions, plunged to 3.68% from 3.94% just prior to the report's release. The Fed has held rates steady since December. A cut in rates would give the job market and overall economy a boost, but it could also risk fueling inflation, which is hovering stubbornly above the central bank's 2% target. ADVERTISEMENT An update on Thursday (local time) for the Fed's preferred measure of inflation showed that prices ticked higher in June, rising to 2.6% from 2.4% in May. The Fed has remained cautious about cutting interest rates because of worries that tariffs will add more fuel to inflation and weigh down economic growth. The central bank, though, also counts "maximum employment" as one of its two mandates along with keeping prices stable. Issues with either of those goals could prompt a shift in policy. The Fed held rates steady again at its most recent meeting this week. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has been pressured by Trump to cut the benchmark rate, though that decision isn't his to make alone, but belongs to the 12 members of the Federal Open Market Committee. "What had looked like a Teflon labour market showed some scratches this morning, as tariffs continue to work their way through the economy," said Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. "A Fed that still appeared hesitant to lower rates may see a clearer path to a September cut, especially if data over the next month confirms the trend." Businesses, investors and the Fed are all operating under a cloud of uncertainty from Trump's tariff policy. The latest moves give 66 countries, the European Union, Taiwan and the Falkland Islands another seven days, instead of taking effect on Friday, as Trump stated earlier. Companies have been warning investors that the policy, with some tariffs already in effect while others change or get extended, has made it difficult to make forecasts. Walmart, Procter & Gamble and many others have warned about import taxes raising costs, eating into profits and raising prices for consumers. ADVERTISEMENT Internet retail giant Amazon fell 8.3%, despite reporting encouraging profit and sales for its most recent quarter. Technology behemoth Apple fell 2.5% after also beating Wall Street's profit and revenue forecasts. Both companies face tougher operating conditions because of tariffs, with Apple forecasting a USD$1.1 billion (NZ$1.8 billion) hit from the fees in the current quarter. Exxon Mobil fell 1.8% after reporting that profit dropped to the lowest level in four years and sales fell as oil prices slumped as OPEC+ ramped up production. All told, the S&P 500 fell 101.38 points to 6,238.01. The Dow dropped 542.40 points to 43,588.58, and the Nasdaq gave up 472.32 points to finish at 20,650.13. Stocks fell across the world. Germany's DAX fell 2.7% and France's CAC 40 fell 2.9%. South Korea's Kospi tumbled 3.9%
Scoop
4 hours ago
- Scoop
Empire In The Antipodes: Why The FBI's Wellington Office Is A Threat ToAotearoa
On 31 July 2025, the FBI officially opened its first standalone office in Aotearoa New Zealand, based in Wellington's U.S. Embassy. For most of the mainstream media, this development was reported with a mixture of bureaucratic neutrality and mild curiosity. For politicians, it was framed as a logical step in enhancing cooperation on 'transnational crime.' But for those of us grounded in anti-authoritarian, anti-imperialist traditions of resistance, the meaning is far clearer – this is a dangerous expansion of American imperial policing into the Pacific, an alarming deepening of New Zealand's entanglement with the global surveillance state, and a stark reminder that in the eyes of empire, no land is truly sovereign. This move is not about safety or justice but about extending the reach of capital and control through surveillance and soft occupation. The narratives of 'cybercrime' and 'child exploitation' are being used to justify foreign policing on Indigenous land, while drawing historical and contemporary connections to colonialism, Five Eyes hegemony, and capitalist control. Policing Beyond Borders The Federal Bureau of Investigation is, by legal definition, a domestic agency. It exists to enforce U.S. federal law on U.S. soil. Yet the FBI now operates over 60 Legal Attaché offices around the world, and the new Wellington branch has been upgraded to become one of them, tasked with responsibility not only for Aotearoa but also for Niue, Samoa, the Cook Islands, Tonga, and even Antarctica. This is a global policing project masquerading as international cooperation. The FBI has been present in New Zealand since 2017, managed through its Canberra office. What has changed is that now, the FBI is no longer a guest, it is a tenant with its own office, its own staff, and its own extraterritorial power. FBI Director Kash Patel's visit to New Zealand was not just administrative, it was ideological. At a press conference, he made clear that the new office was about 'countering the influence of the Chinese Communist Party in the Indo-Pacific.' While New Zealand ministers such as Winston Peters and Judith Collins quickly distanced themselves from this overt geopolitical framing, the cat was already out of the bag. The FBI is not just here to stop online paedophiles or drug traffickers. It is here to enforce the strategic goals of the American empire. The backlash was immediate. Beijing condemned the comments as provocative and destabilising. Thousands of Kiwis expressed their anger online. Some posted furious responses on social media. This is not a fringe reaction. It is the instinct of people who know, whether consciously or intuitively, that what is being done in their name is not for their protection but for their submission. Five Eyes, Many Lies To understand the danger of this moment, one must understand the Five Eyes. Formed as a post-war intelligence alliance between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the Five Eyes has become a sprawling surveillance machine. It is a central pillar of what Edward Snowden exposed as the modern panopticon, a world where the internet is weaponised to track, manipulate, and suppress populations in the name of 'national security.' In this context, the FBI's expansion is not a bureaucratic upgrade, it is an insertion of another gear in the machine. It deepens the convergence of policing, intelligence, and military strategy across the Anglosphere. It makes Aotearoa even more complicit in the surveillance of its own people and of Pacific nations long exploited by Western colonial powers. It also deepens our vulnerability. New Zealand has tried to maintain a strategic balance in its foreign relations – reliant on China as its biggest trading partner, aligned with the U.S. and UK through Five Eyes. This tightrope walk has always been fraught, but the FBI's presence risks turning it into a fall. Patel's anti-China statements not only escalated diplomatic tension, they forced New Zealand to pick a side in the increasingly dangerous theatre of U.S.- China competition. And that choice is being made without democratic consent. The FBI was not invited by the people of Aotearoa. It was welcomed in by a political class eager to please its imperial friends while hiding behind the language of public safety. The Carceral Smokescreen The official justification for the FBI's expansion rests on the pillars of 'transnational crime' – cyber intrusions, child exploitation, organised crime, and drug trafficking. These are serious issues. But serious problems do not justify authoritarian solutions. What we are witnessing is the use of moral panic to expand surveillance infrastructure and carceral logic. The FBI has a long and brutal history, not just of policing crime, but of repressing dissent. From the COINTELPRO operations that targeted civil rights leaders, Black radicals, and Indigenous activists, to the post-9/11 entrenchment of racial profiling and entrapment, the FBI has always served the preservation of white supremacist, capitalist, and imperial power. Its arrival in Aotearoa is not neutral. It is not humanitarian. It is not apolitical. It is the expansion of a violent institution that answers to a violent empire. Moreover, the notion that transnational crime is best tackled through foreign intelligence agencies ignores the real roots of harm. Why is organised crime flourishing? Because economic systems create desperation, exclusion, and inequality. Why are children exploited? Because patriarchal capitalism commodifies bodies and thrives on secrecy and silence. Why is cybercrime rampant? Because capitalism digitised the economy without care for consent, justice, or digital sovereignty. To address these harms, we do not need more spies. We need more justice, real, transformative, community-rooted justice. The FBI is not the answer. It is part of the problem. Pacific Subjugation, Again That the FBI's jurisdiction includes Niue, Tonga, Samoa, and the Cook Islands is not a coincidence, it is a strategy. The Pacific is being recolonised under the guise of security. With China increasing its presence in the region through economic partnerships and infrastructure projects, the U.S. is rushing to reassert dominance, not through aid or diplomacy, but through militarisation and surveillance. The FBI in Wellington will act as a regional hub, not just for information gathering, but for soft coercion. These nations, many still grappling with the legacies of colonisation and neo-colonial governance, are now being brought into the orbit of American law enforcement without meaningful consent or reciprocal benefit. This is not security. This is soft occupation. And it must be opposed. The People Say No One of the few hopeful elements in this bleak development has been the public response. Aotearoa is not asleep. Many see this for what it is, imperial overreach dressed in bureaucratic clothing. The protests, online and offline, speak to a population that still values sovereignty, autonomy, and transparency. As anarcho-communists, we believe in people power. We believe that real security comes not from surveillance but from solidarity. We believe that no foreign agency should operate on these lands without the consent of the people who live here, and that even then, true justice is built from the ground up, not imposed from above. The anger is growing, and it is righteous. But we must go beyond protest. We must organise. A Call to Resistance This moment is a call to action. The FBI's presence is only the most visible layer of a deeper system that treats Aotearoa and the Pacific as pawns in a geopolitical chess game. To resist this system, we must connect the dots. We must link the FBI to the NZ Police, to the SIS, to the Five Eyes, to the prison-industrial complex, to colonial land theft, to capitalism's extraction and surveillance economies. We must say not just 'No FBI', but also 'No prisons. No cops. No empires. No bosses.' We must demand an end to foreign policing and a beginning to something else, something rooted in mana motuhake, tino rangatiratanga, and collective liberation. The opening of an FBI office in Wellington is not an isolated event. It is a sign of a system expanding, a machine tightening its grip. But every expansion carries the seeds of its own opposition. The future we want will not be built by diplomats or directors. It will be built by us, together, from below, in defiance of the states and empires that seek to divide and dominate us. Let this be our line in the sand. We were not born to be watched. We were born to be free. AOTEAROA WORKERS SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT aotearoa_anarchism@
1News
6 hours ago
- 1News
Trump wants director of jobs data fired after dismal employment report
President Donald Trump removed the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures after a report showed hiring slowed in July and was much weaker in May and June than previously reported. Trump, in a post on his social media platform, alleged that the figures were manipulated for political reasons and said that Erika McEntarfer, the director of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, should be fired. He provided no evidence for the charge. "I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY," Trump said on Truth Social. "She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified." Trump later posted, "In my opinion, today's Jobs Numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad". The charge that the data was faked is an explosive one that threatens to undercut the political legitimacy of the US government's economic data, which has long been seen as the "gold standard" of economic measurement globally. Economists and Wall Street investors have for decades generally accepted the data as free from political bias. Trump's move to fire McEntarfer represented another extraordinary assertion of presidential power. He has wielded the authority of the White House to try to control the world's international trade system, media companies, America's top universities and Congress' constitutional power of the purse, among other institutions. McEntarfer's firing was roundly condemned by a group that included two former BLS commissioners, including William Beach, who was appointed by Trump to the position. They particularly objected to the charge that the data was altered for political reasons. "This rationale for firing Dr McEntarfer is without merit and undermines the credibility of federal economic statistics that are a cornerstone of intelligent economic decision-making by businesses, families, and policymakers," the statement from the group, the Friends of BLS, said. In addition to Beach, the statement was signed by Erica Groshen, BLS commissioner under former President Barack Obama. "Firing the Commissioner ... when the BLS revises jobs numbers down (as it routinely does) threatens to destroy trust in core American institutions, and all government statistics," Arin Dube, an economist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, said on X. "I can't stress how damaging this is." After Trump's initial post, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said on X that McEntarfer was no longer leading the bureau and that William Wiatrowski, the deputy commissioner, would serve as the acting director. "I support the President's decision to replace Biden's Commissioner and ensure the American People can trust the important and influential data coming from BLS," Chavez-DeRemer said. Friday's jobs report showed that just 73,000 jobs were added last month and that 258,000 fewer jobs were created in May and June than previously estimated. The report suggested that the economy has sharply weakened during Trump's tenure, a pattern consistent with a slowdown in economic growth during the first half of the year and an increase in inflation during June that appeared to reflect the price pressures created by the president's tariffs. "What does a bad leader do when they get bad news? Shoot the messenger," Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a speech. McEntarfer was nominated by Biden in 2023 and became the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in January 2024. Commissioners typically serve four-year terms but since they are political appointees can be fired. The commissioner is the only political appointee of the agency, which has hundreds of career civil servants. The Senate confirmed McEntarfer to her post 86-8, with now Vice President JD Vance among the yea votes. Trump focused much of his ire on the revisions the agency made to previous hiring data. Job gains in May were revised down to just 19,000 from a previously revised 125,000, and for June they were cut to 14,000 from 147,000. In July, only 73,000 positions were added. The unemployment rate ticked up to a still-low 4.2% from 4.1%. "No one can be that wrong? We need accurate Jobs Numbers," Trump wrote. "She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified. Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can't be manipulated for political purposes." Trump has not always been so suspicious of the monthly jobs report and responded enthusiastically after the initial May figures came out on June 6, when it was initially reported that the economy added 139,000 jobs. "GREAT JOB NUMBERS, STOCK MARKET UP BIG!' Trump posted at the time. That estimate was later revised down to 125,000 jobs, prior to the most recent revision down to just 19,000. During the 2016 campaign, Trump was more critical. He often attacked the jobs figures as they showed the unemployment rate steadily declining while Obama was still president, only to immediately switch to praising the data once he was in office, as steady job gains continued. The monthly employment report is one of the most closely-watched pieces of government economic data and can cause sharp swings in financial markets. The disappointing figure sent US market indexes about 1.5% lower on Friday. The revisions to the May and June numbers were quite large and surprising to many economists. At the same time, every monthly jobs report includes revisions to the prior two months' figures. Those revisions occur as the government receives more responses from businesses to its survey, which helps provide a more complete picture of employment trends each month. In the past decade, companies have taken longer to respond, which may have contributed to larger monthly revisions. The proportion of companies responding to the surveys has also fallen steadily over the past 10 years, but the survey still gets responses from roughly 200,000 business locations, which can be independent companies or franchises of larger chains. The monthly jobs report has long been closely guarded within the BLS, with early copies held in safes under lock and key to prevent any leaks or early dissemination.
