Teamsters boss praises Trump foreign film tariff, condemns Hollywoods outsourcing

Teamsters General President Sean M.O’Brien and Teamsters Motion Picture Division Director Lindsay Dougherty praised President Donald Trump’s call to place a 100% tariff on films produced in other countries.In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump wrote that the “Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death.” He went on to warn, “Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States,” and that, “Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated.”Trump added that plans to institute a tariff are in the works, and he authorized 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.”The two representatives of the Teamsters union praised Trump for this in a statement, saying, “For years, Hollywood studios have hollowed out the industry by following Corporate America’s crooked playbook of outsourcing good union jobs.

Studios chase cheap production costs overseas while gutting the American workforce that built the film and TV industry.”“These gigantic corporations line their pockets by recklessly cutting corners, abandoning American crews, and exploiting tax loopholes abroad,” the statement added.“While these companies get rich fleeing to other countries and gaming the system, our members have gotten screwed over.

The Teamsters Union has been sounding the alarm for years.If studios want to benefit from American box offices, they must invest in American workers.”The statement included an explicit statement of praise for Trump himself, declaring, “We thank President Trump for boldly supporting good union jobs when others have turned their heads.

This is a strong step toward finally reining in the studios’ un-American addiction to outsourcing our members’ work.”The union clarified that ...