British Columbia’s Jobs Minister Ravi Kahlon said it’s too early to tell if Donald Trump’s latest tariff threat against the film industry is legitimate.
The U.S. president announced on social media Monday he would be imposing a 100 per cent tariff on “any and all movies that are made outside of the United States.”
He said the film industry has been stolen from the U.S., and California has been especially hard-hit.
Kahlon told reporters Monday that this is the latest in a long series of threats by Trump against Canadian industries.
“It’s unclear at this stage if anything will come from this new claim from the president,” said Kahlon.
“We take all the threats coming out of the U.S. administration very seriously. We have to wait for the details,” he said.
Kahlon noted film is a difficult industry to tariff, and said the province is prepared to work with the sector to navigate any U.S. tariffs that do emerge.
“Part of this is to create uncertainty — this uncertainty, which of course hurts our economy, but also is actually hurting the U.S. economy as well.” said Kahlon.
He said the B.C. government has been working on ways to diversify the arts sector away from the U.S.
