🎧 The Week Trump Terrified Hollywood
The president, Jon Voight and Gov. Newsom can't save an industry
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Really believe Trump wants to bring production back stateside? Or that California Gov. Gavin Newsom can work with him to do it? Think again, says Richard Rushfield, who joins Elaine Low, Sean McNulty and Natalie Jarvey to break down the fantasy of a tariff or federal incentive, the impact already from the trade war, Newsom’s failings that precipitated all of this — and why Richard thinks any action to bring production back is 25 years too late.
Trump’s proposed 100% tariffs on foreign goods — including film and media imports — won’t “save” Hollywood. They’ll isolate it further, as the rest of the world modernizes, partners, and innovates.
This is not economic patriotism. It’s cultural nationalism disguised as policy. Trump’s administration isn’t offering revival; it’s offering regression. The stories they endorse exclude rather than include, censor rather than illuminate. What they propose is a sanitized, propagandist cinema — a weaponization of narrative that stifles diversity and replaces creativity with compliance.
And meanwhile, Hollywood is no longer what it was.
Netflix spends more than 60% of its content budget outside the United States, with major operations now in South Korea, the UK, India, and parts of Africa. Disney+ commissions regionally to satisfy global content quotas and local demand. In 2023, almost 70% of Disney’s streaming subscribers were non-U.S. based.
The future has already been outsourced.
AI didn’t knock on the door. It moved in.
By mid-2024, investment in generative AI tools specific to the media and entertainment industries surpassed $16 billion. These tools don’t just generate scripts and storyboards — they clone voices, replicate faces, and simulate performances. Some agencies are already signing AI-generated influencers. Others are building fully synthetic shows — no crew, no sets, no unions, no resistance.
Platforms like Runway, Sora, and ElevenLabs are redefining what it means to produce. And with companies like Nvidia, Meta, and Apple quietly acquiring narrative IP to train their models, the creative industry isn’t evolving — it’s being rewritten.
And then there’s gaming.
A decade ago, television was king. Now, interactive storytelling dwarfs it. The global gaming industry was valued at $800 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $1.5 trillion by 2034. Platforms like Fortnite and Roblox are not just games — they are production studios, distribution hubs, and social arenas rolled into one. For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, games arestory.
We’re not just losing our audience — we’re failing to understand them.
And while Hollywood clings to declining box office numbers and nostalgia-fueled sequels, the political right is seizing the cultural void. Led by actors like Jon Voight and senators like J.D. Vance, they’re pushing guidelines that harken back to the Hays Code — demanding art that reinforces a singular American identity. One free from “wokeness,” “gender ideology,” and “revisionist” history.
This isn’t preservation. It’s erasure.
But this crisis isn’t only cultural — it’s economic. And the two are intertwined.
In 2024, the U.S. national debt exceeded $36 trillion, with over $1 trillion spent annually just servicing that debt — making it the second-largest federal expenditure after Social Security. The nonpartisan CBO warns that if Trump-era tax cuts are extended, debt-to-GDP could exceed 200% by 2047, a point economists consider unsustainable. For reference, Japan, with the highest debt-to-GDP ratio globally, is at about 260%, but its debt is internally held and its economy structurally distinct. The U.S. doesn't have that insulation.
The Penn Wharton Budget Model forecasts even bleaker outcomes if interest rates climb, which they are. If confidence in U.S. fiscal policy collapses — as it did in the UK briefly under Liz Truss — the result won’t be gradual. It will be sudden, severe, and potentially irreversible.
Trump’s answer? More tariffs. More slogans. More fossil fuels. And an AI policy that amounts to “let the market decide,” even if the market devours human labor.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is moving.
Australia controls over 40% of global lithium supply — the mineral backbone of electric vehicles, renewable batteries, and AI infrastructure. Chile, China, and now Afghanistan (via China) control key refining operations. Even Greenland, with vast untapped lithium reserves, has become a geopolitical prize.
Microsoft recently acquired nuclear land at Three Mile Island to build an AI data center. Tesla has sunk billions into lithium extraction in Texas and Nevada, yet still the U.S. imports nearly 90% of its lithium needs.
Trump has floated annexing Canada or Greenland to secure resources — not out of strategy, but desperation.
So while former colonies build smart trade alliances and leap into the lithium age, America argues over history curriculum.
Back home, Los Angeles — once a mythic beacon of global cinema — has become a case study in collapse. A broken housing system. A homeless crisis of biblical proportions. Drought-scorched land. Poisoned water. Spiraling living costs. Cultural capital with no capital left.
We must stop pretending it’s a rough patch. This is not a downturn. It’s a collapse.
Let’s speak plainly:
AI is the storm.
Lithium is the lightning rod.
And Hollywood is the cathedral beneath it — weathered, unguarded, and unfinished.
This is the turning point.
The question is not whether change is coming.
It’s who survives it — and what stories will be left to tell.