Donald Trump’s proposal to put 100 percent tariffs on foreign movies left many filmmakers scratching their heads. But it did highlight a problem plaguing Hollywood: cinema is rapidly abandoning its long-time home.For decades almost every film that hit US theatres — as well as most of what was on TV — emanated from a handful of movie lots in the sun-soaked capital of America’s entertainment industry.Actors, stunt performers, costume designers, set builders, editors and special effects wizards flocked to Los Angeles, where they worked with hundreds of thousands of drivers, caterers, location managers, animal handlers and prop wranglers to produce thousands of hours of output every year.The city boomed from the 1920s onwards because it was an industry town with a virtual stranglehold.Not any more.”The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” Trump blared on his social media platform over the weekend.- All-time low -The number of shooting days in Los Angeles reached an all-time low last year — lower even than during the Covid-19 pandemic, when filming shut down completely.Less than one-in-five film or TV series broadcast in the United States was produced in California, according to FilmLA, an organization that tracks the movie industry.”On-location production in Greater Los Angeles declined by 22.4 percent from January through March 2025,” it said in a report, with film and TV production both down 30 percent year-on-year.Southern California’s high costs — including for labor — are a problem for studios, whose margins are small, especially as fewer people are prepared to shell out for pricey cinema tickets, preferring to watch titles at home.As revenue pressures mount, production houses are turning to filming opportunities abroad that offer them savings. And there is no shortage of countries courting them: Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Hungary, Thailand and others all offer tax incentives.The temptation to film abroad only increased during the Hollywood actors’ and writers’ strike in 2023, said entertainment lawyer Steve Weizenecker, who advises producers on financial incentives.”During the strikes, I had production that went to the UK, that went to France, Italy and Spain, because they couldn’t shoot here,” he told AFP.”And so the concern now is how do we bring that back?”Toronto, Vancouver, Britain, Central Europe and Australia now all rank above California as preferred filming locations for industry executives.Competition has never been more fierce: in 2024, 120 jurisdictions worldwide offered tax incentives for film and TV production, almost 40 percent more than seven years ago.- Canada first -Canada introduced a tax break for film and TV productions as early as 1995.”That was when the term ‘runaway production’ started being thrown about, because suddenly producers did not have to shoot in California or New York,” Weizenecker said.Canada’s success has since spawned competition between dozens of US states.Georgia, where many Marvel superhero films are shot, has offered a tax credit since 2005. New Mexico, the setting for drug drama “Breaking Bad,” has been doing the same since 2002. And Texas, which has offered tax breaks since 2007, wants to increase its budget allocated to such funding.”Much like Detroit lost its hold on the auto industry, California has lost its dominance, mostly due to the arrogance of not understanding there are always alternatives,” Bill Mechanic, a former Paramount and Disney executive, told Deadline.State officials, prompted by the cries of anguish from Hollywood have belatedly begun to take notice.Last year, California Governor Gavin Newsom called on lawmakers to double the money available to the state’s TV and film tax credit program.California currently offers a tax credit of up to 25 percent that can be used to offset expenses including the cost of hiring film crews or building sets.Two bills trundling through the legislature could increase it up to 35 percent of qualified expenditures, and would expand the kind of productions that would qualify.Newsom reacted to Trump’s tariff suggestion with a counter-proposal for a $7.5 billion federal tax credit that would apply nationwide.Whether or not the Republican would be keen to support an industry he views as hostile and overly liberal remains to be seen, but it would really help, according to George Huang, a UCLA professor of screenwriting.”Right now the industry is teetering,” Huang told the Los Angeles Times. “This would go a long way in helping right the ship and putting us back on course to being the capital of the entertainment world.”

Merwil Gutierrez, 19, was among 200 Venezuelans controversially deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador in March without due process or any criminal charges, says his father who has heard nothing for weeks.”I don’t know if my son is okay, if he is sick, I don’t know if he is eating at all,” Wilmer Gutierrez, Merwil’s father, told AFP.  “The relatives of all those who are there” have the same concerns, he said.Merwil does not know why he was taken to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in a wave of deportations that has stirred legal debate in the United States over a lack of due process and alleged human rights violations, his father said.Merwil was arrested by agents around 11:00 pm on February 24 from the door of the Bronx building where he lived, after buying dinner and socializing with neighbors.The agents initially asked for another man with a different name, his father said. After checking his identity, one agent told him he could go, but another decided to detain him, along with two others, said Wilmer in a park in front of their building. He last spoke to his son while Merwil was detained in a Texas processing center where he learned that he would be deported the next day. Both men assumed it would be to their native Venezuela.”When we found out that those flights had arrived in El Salvador… we weren’t sure about whether they had sent him to Venezuela, because no flight was due to leave for there,” said the 40-year-old father of three.Until US authorities issued a list of those deported to El Salvador some days later, Wilmer was in the dark about his son’s whereabouts.The removals conducted by the Trump administration sparked condemnation and allegations he has run roughshod over the law, court orders and human rights in his push to conduct the “largest deportation effort in US history.”- ‘Simply a kidnapping’ -One of the most publicized was the removal of Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was apparently deported to his native El Salvador by accident.The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.Last week, a Texas judge blocked deportations like Merwil Gutierrez’s under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.Previously, the US Supreme Court and several district courts had temporarily halted the expulsions. Merwil had filed for asylum, said lawyer Ana de Jesus from the organization Immigracion al Dia, who described what happened to her client as “horrible.” Together with other migrant support organizations, they are considering seeking a court order demanding the government correct its abuse of power. “Regardless of whether something can be done or not, what we’re trying to do is make noise, public pressure because what is being done — not following due process, not allowing us to help our clients — it is simply a kidnapping,” said de Jesus.In Merwil’s case, two US lawmakers from New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Adriano Espaillat, said in a statement “we are horrified by ICE’s abduction of Merwil Gutierrez, who was violently taken from his doorstop in the Bronx and deported to El Salvador.”After an arduous journey through the famously dangerous jungles of the Darien Gap, between Colombia and Panama, following hundreds of thousands of other Venezuelans, Wilmer and his then 17-year-old son entered the US in July 2023 seeking asylum.Wilmer insists his son, whom he describes as passionate about clothing and shoes, did not have the tattoos commonly linked by law enforcement to the violent Tren de Aragua Venezuelan street gang.”If they made a mistake in this country, then let them do the time in this country or send them to their own country,” said Wilmer. Father and son both worked nights at a packaging warehouse since arriving in New York.On the night of his arrest, Merwil was off work.”That dream (of coming to the United States) turned into a nightmare. It was beautiful while we were coming,” the father said, swiping through images of their journey on his phone. “Look at his childlike face,” he said wistfully. “If they send him back to Venezuela… I would grab my suitcase and leave — that’s where the American dream ends.”

Donald Trump’s order to withhold $5 billion earmarked to grow the electric vehicle charging network in the United States is being challenged in court by more than a dozen states, California officials said Wednesday.The lawsuit is the latest attempt by a coalition of largely liberal jurisdictions looking to push back on what they see as the American president’s overreach, especially on environmental issues.”The President continues his unconstitutional attempts to withhold funding that Congress appropriated to programs he dislikes,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.”This time he’s illegally stripping away billions of dollars for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, all to line the pockets of his Big Oil friends.”A mammoth congressional bill passed in 2022 aimed at bolstering America’s crumbling infrastructure included $5 billion to help build out charging points for electric vehicles.But as soon as he arrived in the Oval Office in January, Trump ordered that the money be stopped, part of a slew of executive orders the Republican has issued, which also included demands that the United States produce more fossil fuels.The cash had been allocated by Congress to the states, and in some cases was expected to be paired with state and private funds as jurisdictions look to grow charging networks and reduce the range anxiety that drivers of gas cars sometimes say puts them off switching to electric vehicles.The lawsuit announced Wednesday contends that as president, Trump does not have the power to divert monies the legislature has allocated.”The complaint asks the court to declare that the… directive is unlawful and to permanently stop the administration from withholding the funds,” a statement said.Trump, a climate change skeptic, has long been hostile to electric vehicles and has repeatedly lashed out at Environmental Protection Agency rules requiring automakers to cut greenhouse gas emissions in their cars.California, which is home to the lion’s share of EVs and hybrid vehicles in the United States, plans to phase out the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035.The lawsuit comes as Republicans in Congress are trying to remove the rules that allow the state — the biggest and richest in the nation — to make its own vehicle emission rules.”The facts don’t lie: The demand for clean transportation continues to rise, and California will be at the forefront of this transition to a more sustainable, low-emissions future,” said Bonta.”California will not back down, not from Big Oil, and not from federal overreach.”Bonta is joined in the lawsuit by attorneys general from, Colorado, Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont, and the District of Columbia.