Fun, Fun, Fun Until Daddy Takes The Shotgun Away

Deranged Trump is now putting a 100% tariff on movies made outside the US. pic.twitter.com/932R8xgEYk

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) May 4, 2025

 This seems to be the place:

a) Any authority granted to the President by section 1702 of this title may be exercised to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States, if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such threat.

I’m assuming this is the statute Trump is relying on to issue tariffs Willy-nilly, mostly because he declared the situation in Hollywood (whose problems seem to be a combination of competition from Georgia and New Mexico, and California law) a natural security emergency. I understand the courts don’t generally question the legitimacy of such a declaration (separation of powers; which doesn’t mean they won’t), but in the current context this is of greater interest:

b) Exceptions to grant of authority The authority granted to the President by this section does not include the authority to regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly—

(3) the importation from any country, or the exportation to any country, whether commercial or otherwise, regardless of format or medium of transmission, of any information or informational materials, including but not limited to, publications, films, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact disks, CD ROMs, artworks, and news wire feeds. The exports exempted from regulation or prohibition by this paragraph do not include those which are otherwise controlled for export under section 4604 [3] of this title, or under section 4605 [3] of this title to the extent that such controls promote the nonproliferation or antiterrorism policies of the United States, or with respect to which acts are prohibited by chapter 37 of title 18;

Which means there’s a very serious question of whether he can even do this. Which he hasn’t officially done yet.  But the President sneezes, and the nation catches cold:

At the open of the U.S. stock market regular trading Monday, Netflix’s stock was down -3.3%, Disney was -2.4%, WBD was -4.2% and Paramount was -2.2%. Shares of Lionsgate Studios slipped more than 7% in early trading. The declines were steeper than in broader market indexes like the S&P 500 (-0.70%) and the Nasdaq Composite (-0.82%).

By 11:30 a.m. ET, Hollywood stocks had regained ground but most remained in negative territory. Lionsgate Studios was the biggest loser, down 5.4%; others included Netflix (-2.12%), Paramount (-1.05%), Warner Bros. Discovery (-0.7%) and Disney (-0.1%). Shares of cable and media conglomerate Comcast, whose NBCUniversal owns Universal Pictures, were essentially flat (up 0.03%).

And nobody even knows what the tariffs are going to be. They just know Trump is a toddler with a shotgun. 

Sooner or later, Congress is going to have to take that shotgun away.