President Trump surprised California with a pair of announcements during the weekend to impose prices on films produced abroad and to reopen Alcatraz, a benchmark in San Francisco, as a working-class prison, all without consultation with state officials.
The White House would not offer details on one or the other plan, permanent industry executives And the local legislators who consider both as very impractical, and incited a series of fundamental questions that the administration officials have pressed by the Times were not prepared to answer.
How does Trump team plan to collect import rights on a product that is equivalent to intellectual property? Does the president's team understand that most Hollywood productions are at least partially filmed abroad? And why will the federal government close a national historic monument, convert it to prison In the heart of a city After closing it 60 years ago due to the row?
However, Trump's attention on Hollywood, in particular, praised him for causing national attention to a growing crisis for Los Angeles, who loses his precious industry at a worrying speed. Cinema leaders do not ask if the president's intentions are in the right place. They ask if his solutions have a meaning – or could turn around.
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Trump's decision to protect “cultural domination of America”
Trump's announcement on the film prices came after one of his three ambassadors appointed to Hollywood, Jon Voight, fly to Trump Mar-A-Lago Resort in Florida During the weekend To present ideas on how to reverse an exodus of production from Los Angeles – a list that proposed prices in only “certain limited circumstances”, according to a statement by the director of Voight.
A White House official told Times that “if President Trump regularly corresponds to his Hollywood ambassadors, including Jon Voight, to restore the cultural domination of America, it was President Trump himself who formulated the idea of using prices to make Hollywood again.”
But the White House could not provide additional details on the level, which could ultimately harm the production companies even as Trump and Voight seek to protect.
Actor Jon Voight, presented during President Trump's victory rally on January 19 in Washington, visited the president's seaside resort in Florida during the weekend.
(Scott Olson / Getty Images)
Hollywood faces a real crisis on its historic entertainment industry, production work moving not only abroad, but also towards competing domestic hubs. The leaders of Hollywood and the management of California, in particular its Democratic Governor, Gavin Newsom, welcomed presidential attention on the issue, extending the collaboration offers on a solution.
“California has built the film industry – and we are ready to bring even more jobs home,” said Newsom on social networks this week, offering a federal tax credit for Hollywood filmmakers in the White House and saying to Trump: “Let's do it.”
But A time survey Last month, last month found that the two ambassadors of Voight and Trump, Mel Gibson and Sylvester Stallone, were barely engaged with the stakeholders of the industry on a work plan before the president rendered his public plans. The White House was also limited in its awareness. At least one of Hollywood's special envoys learned of their appointment by tweet, sources said.
Another front in the California pricing battle
Trump said the film's prices would be implemented to combat the foreign nations trying to siphon the United States dollars industry, a practice which he described as “national security threat”. But the announcement comes when California conducts a lawsuit against the American administration on the legality of the use of prices by Trump first – in particular its justification for national security.
“The President of the United States simply does not have the legal authority, under the law on emergency economic powers, to impose prices. Period, complete judgment,” said Newsom last week.
Even if Trump was to plan, his team should probably offer another legal vehicle: an amendment from 1988 to the law on emergency economic powers explicitly freely exempt films, publications and works of art, among other articles, foreign duties.
Meanwhile, all other prices currently in place against foreign nations – in particular against China – are starting to affect American families, including those of California.
Quick fashion furniture and retailers have started to urge customers to make purchases now before imminent increases take effect, which increases prices by 30% or more.
And prices increased overnight for parents of young children this week. A Mattel Barbie doll, which cost less than $ 10 last month, is now $ 15 and is expected to increase the price more, while Uppababy's signature stroller, scored at $ 899 on Sunday, costs $ 1,199 on Monday.
“All costs are down,” said Trump on the Air Force One on Sunday evening. “Everything is broken, apart from the thing in which you wear babies.”
“Law and Order” in Alcatraz
Trump's announcement on Alcatraz intervened just a few hours after the film by Clint Eastwood in 1979 on public television in southern FloridaInviting questions to the president this week on how he had the idea.
“Well, I guess I was supposed to be a filmmaker. We are talking – we started with the creation of films, it will end,” Trump told journalists on Monday. “I mean, it represents something very strong, very powerful, in terms of law and order. Our country needs law and order. Alcatraz is, I would say, the ultimate, right? Alcatraz – Sing Sing and Alcatraz, Les Films. ”
“But uh, it's a museum right now,” he continued. “Believe it or not. The people of Lotta go there. He housed the most violent criminals in the world, and no one has ever escaped. A person has almost arrived, but they, as you know the story, they found their clothes quite poorly torn apart, and uh, it was a lot of sharks, many problems. No one has ever escaped the law and the order. Look at him.
Trump's proposal was quickly rejected by local legislators and sparked confusion among tourists in Alcatraz. In order to revoke the status of the site as a national historic monument, the National Park Service should probably carry out an in -depth exam before the interior secretary, Doug Burgum, made a decision on the way of proceeding.
“Alcatraz closed its doors as a federal penitentiary more than sixty years ago. It is now a very popular national park and a large tourist attraction ”, the representative Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), former lecturer of the room, said on x in response to the idea. “The president's proposal is not serious.”
Trump's plan to rekindle Alcatraz as “symbol of law and order” arises while Californians are increasingly losing confidence in his adhesion to the rule of law.
A new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies Co -Times survey revealed that 65% of Voters recorded through the state Believe that Trump's actions “exceeded his constitutional authority as president”, including 24% of Republicans and 63% of the self -employed.
What should you read elsewhere
Essential reading: Trump's call to reopen Alcatraz falls flat with tourists, who ask: why?
Deep diving: Newsom wants a federal tax credit to save Hollywood. Why it's a long time
The Special Times: Trump's popularity in a collapse in California in the midst of abused concerns of power
More to come,
Michael Wilner
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