BOGOTÁ: President Donald Trump’s threat to slap tariffs on foreign-made movies has left Latin America’s burgeoning film industry baffled and fearful.
Until this last lazy Sunday evening, Latin American cinema had been riding high.
“I’m Still Here” won Brazil its first Oscar in March, a drumbeat of hits topped streaming charts and more and more movies were being made in the region.
Netflix recently announced it would invest $1 billion to produce series and movies in Mexico over the next four years.
Then the US president — or perhaps an aide on his behalf — picked up a device and began to type.
“WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” a Truth Social post screamed.
“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,“ he posted.
Like many of the 47th president’s missives, it caused immediate shockwaves.
Film-makers from Canada to Hollywood to Australia gasped, wondering if the final curtain was falling.
But in Latin America, there was also confusion — a sense that something may have been lost in translation.
Award-winning Argentine producer Axel Kuschevatzky — whose projects include Oscar-winning “The Secret in Their Eyes” — said the first task was to “understand if the measures are going ahead” and “what their scope would be.”
“Tariffs apply only to goods and not services,“ he told AFP. “In reality, audiovisual production is a service.”
Marianna Souza, president of the Brazilian Association of Audiovisual Production, said it was also unclear if streaming platforms and cross-border productions would be included.
‘Made in America’
The nightmare scenario is a blanket toll on foreign-made production.
In Colombia, Gustavo Suarez, a cinema professor at Valle University, estimates that 60 to 70 percent of local production is linked to international projects.
Recently they have included “Narcos” and “100 Years of Solitude.”
“Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and all these platforms are making more and more movies and series in Colombia because it’s cheaper than making them in the United States,“ he told AFP.
“There will be an impact,“ he said.
But filmmakers also point out that — much like the car market and its global supply chains — it does not always make sense to talk about films or series being from one country.
“Production is dynamic. You could have capital from four countries and film in four different countries,“ said Kuschevatzky.
Defining ‘Made in America’ is difficult.
“How do you define that? The financing? With who owns the intellectual property? Where it was filmed? A definition is complex.”
