Hollywood elites are begging Washington for taxpayer bailouts after President Trump’s sweeping tariffs disrupted their offshore production gravy train. According to reports, trade unions and studio executives are now pushing Congress for a new slate of tax breaks and subsidies to prop up an industry riddled with box office bombs and political activism.
The push was led by actor Jon Voight, a longtime Trump ally and newly named ambassador for U.S. film revitalization, who recently met with the president to float several incentive proposals. His recommendations, echoed by major entertainment unions, include reinstating tax deductions under Section 181 and creating infrastructure subsidies for theaters and production companies.
Voight said these changes are essential to keep jobs in America, but critics see something else: the same Hollywood crowd that mocked Trump and Middle America now asking for handouts after losing money on “woke” flops like Disney’s “Snow White” and “The Marvels,” both of which lost hundreds of millions and alienated audiences with progressive messaging.
“These studios and unions don’t want market competition,” one industry insider told the Daily Caller. “They want the taxpayer to foot the bill for their failures.”
The two letters sent to Congress — one asking for production incentives, the other for tax code extensions — were backed by the Motion Picture Association (MPA), SAG-AFTRA, the Writers Guild of America East, the Directors Guild of America, and several other high-powered groups. In short, everyone who pushed the industry leftward over the past decade now wants financial protection from the consequences.
And while Hollywood elites scramble to shift blame and secure subsidies, Trump is pursuing a parallel strategy to bring jobs back to American soundstages. His newly announced 100% tariff on movies made overseas is already rattling the industry, with some stocks falling in response to the Sunday announcement.
“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States… Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce and the United States Trade Representative to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”
His message was clear: stop offshoring talent, labor, and creativity — or pay a premium at the border.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom — whose state has suffered a massive Hollywood exodus in recent years — quickly jumped onboard with a call for a federal film tax credit worth at least $7.5 billion. It would be one of the largest entertainment subsidies in U.S. history. Newsom framed it as a patriotic move, saying, “Now it’s time for a real federal partnership to Make America Film Again.”
But to many Americans outside of L.A., it’s a tone-deaf demand. As groceries, gas, and rent soar, and as families cut streaming services to save money, Hollywood is still reeling from the effects of COVID-era shutdowns, streaming disruptions, and cultural misfires. Yet rather than reinvent the industry with content people want, they’re asking the government to insulate them from risk.
“The industry used to be about innovation,” one conservative commentator wrote. “Now it’s about entitlement. Hollywood wants Middle America to subsidize its garbage movies while lecturing them about politics, gender, and race.”
The irony isn’t lost on critics: Hollywood wants help from the very voters it’s spent years mocking, censoring, and excluding.
For Trump and his allies, the message is simple: if movies are going to be made, they should be made in America — with American jobs, American values, and American accountability.
Whether Congress delivers on that vision, or bends to the demands of industry elites, remains to be seen. But one thing’s clear: the battle over the future of Hollywood is no longer just a culture war. It’s a fiscal one too — and taxpayers are watching.
