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      Trump Says He Will Put 100% Tariff on Movies Made Outside U.S.

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      Declaring foreign film production a national security threat, the president said he had asked his top trade official to start the process of imposing a tax on Hollywood.President Trump said he would impose a 100 percent tariff on movies “produced” outside the United States, proclaiming in a social media post on Sunday that the issue posed a national security threat. Mr. Trump said he had authorized Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative, to begin the process of taxing “any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.” Mr. Trump added, “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.”The Motion Picture Association, which represents the biggest Hollywood studios in Washington, declined to comment. The association’s latest economic impact report, based primarily on government data and released in 2023, showed that the film industry generated a positive U.S. balance of trade for every major market in the world.As is often is the case with Mr. Trump’s declarations on social media, it was not entirely clear what he was talking about. Did he mean any movie, including independent foreign-language films destined for art house cinemas and movies that play exclusively on streaming services?Would such a tariff apply only to movies receiving tax incentives from foreign countries — or to any movie with scenes shot overseas? What about postproduction visual effects work? A single superhero movie can often involve a half-dozen or more specialized firms scattered around the world.Technically speaking, the vast majority of movies shown in American cinemas are produced in the United States — scripts written, preproduction planning handled, principal actors cast, footage edited and sound added. But Hollywood has increasingly turned to foreign locales for the cameras-rolling part of the moviemaking process because, as with so much traditional manufacturing, it is much cheaper.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A New Trend in Global Elections: The Anti-Trump Bump

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      In voting in Canada and Australia, right-wing parties that borrowed from the MAGA playbook were punished. Elsewhere, President Trump is having a more complex impact.The Trump factor is shaping global politics, one election at a time — just not necessarily to the president’s taste.In major votes in Canada and Australia over the past two weeks, centrists saw their fortunes revived, while parties that had borrowed from the MAGA playbook lost out.President Trump has been back in power for only three months, but already his policies, including imposing tariffs and upending alliances, have rippled into domestic political battles around the world.While it is too soon to say that anti-Trump forces are on the rise globally, it is clear that voters have Mr. Trump somewhere on their mind as they make decisions.Political cousinsCanada and Australia share a lot in common: a political system, a major mining industry, a sovereign in King Charles. Now they also share a remarkable political story.In both countries, before Mr. Trump was inaugurated, the center-left ruling parties had been in poor shape and appeared poised to lose power. The front-runners in polls were the conservative parties, whose leaders flirted with Trumpian politics both in style and in substance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 75 Shares149 Views

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      Another Reason People Fear the Government

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      Why do Americans have such deep distrust of their government?It’s a simple question with a complex answer, but here’s part of the reason: All too often, the government wrongfully inflicts profound harm on American citizens and then leaves them with no recourse. It violates the law and leaves its victims with no way to be made whole.Let me give you two recent examples, both taken from Supreme Court cases that were argued this term and have not yet been decided.In the predawn hours of Oct. 18, 2017, an F.B.I. SWAT team detonated a flash-bang grenade at a home at 3756 Denville Trace in Atlanta. A team of federal agents rushed in.The family inside was terrified. Hilliard Toi Cliatt lived there with his partner, Curtrina Martin, and her 7-year-old son, Gabe. They had no idea who had entered their house. Cliatt tried to protect Martin by grabbing her and hiding in a closet.Martin screamed, “I need to get my son.” The agents pulled Cliatt and Martin out of the closet, holding them at gunpoint as Martin fell to the floor, half-naked. When they asked Cliatt his address, “All the noise just ended.”He told them: 3756 Denville Trace. But it turned out they were supposed to be at 3741 Landau Lane, an entirely different house down the block. The agents left, raided the correct house and then returned to apologize. The lead agent gave the family his business card and left the family, according to their Supreme Court petition, in “stunned disbelief.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      From One Forest to Another: A Homeless Sweep Changes Little

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      After federal officials began a sweep of a vast forest in Oregon, most of the people who had used the woods as a last refuge had left. But they didn’t go far.With nowhere else to go, many drove their aging R.V.s to a different forest just a few dozen miles away. Advocates for the homeless estimate that there had been 100 to 200 people living in the original encampment on the outskirts of Bend, Ore., a town that has been transformed by an influx of wealthy newcomers.The cost of housing is now out of reach for many in Bend. In recent years, the town has increased the number of beds in shelters, but has not been able to meet the demand. The chasm between rich and poor has widened so much that it even swallowed up a former mayor: He died homeless after being discovered with frostbite in a tent in a Walmart parking lot.Forest law enforcement officials have been deployed to clear the homeless encampment near Bend.On the day of the closure, many R.V.s got no farther than the blacktop just past the police cordon.“I honestly don’t know what to do,” said Andrew Tomlinson, 41, who had been living in the encampment. “I have nowhere to put our R.V. If we leave it, it will be towed, and everything we own is in there.” Mr. Tomlinson said he was unable to work after a heart attack four years ago. He has two stents in his heart and edema in his legs — the wounds have broken the skin, requiring him to apply daily bandages.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Rubio Proved Himself as Trump’s Loyal Foreign Policy Foot Soldier

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      As Secretary of State, Marco Rubio has been Donald Trump’s reliable echo on issues like Iran, Ukraine and Gaza. But Steve Witkoff, the president’s friend, remains the chief negotiator.After President Trump ousted Mike Waltz, his national security adviser, on Thursday night, he settled on someone less hawkish on Russia and willing to remain in lock-step with his foreign policy approach to Iran, Gaza and China.He didn’t have to look far.By making Marco Rubio the top foreign policy adviser in the West Wing, in addition to his main day job as secretary of state, Mr. Trump turned to a one-time political rival who has spent the first three months of the administration as a loyal, globe-trotting foot soldier and a reliable echo of the president’s agenda.Now Mr. Rubio will help run that agenda from inside both the White House and the State Department headquarters — even as the president’s longtime friend, Steve Witkoff, remains the chief negotiator, in charge of finding an end to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and reaching a deal with Iran on its nuclear weapons program.Leslie Vinjamuri, the director of the U.S. and the Americas Program at Chatham House, a London-based research institute, said Mr. Rubio is “willing to align and to follow with where Trump is. What we’re getting, throughout this administration, is: Loyalty comes first, loyalty to the man, loyalty to the mission.”But by consolidating so much foreign policy power in one person, she added, Mr. Trump risks losing someone who might provide him with different policy perspectives or competing advice.“You just reduce the number of potential points for somebody saying, ‘Actually, whoa. Look what just happened,’” she said. “‘Look at this piece of information that flies in the face of what we suspected.’”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

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      Under Trump, Stocks Have the Worst Start to a Presidential Term Since 1974

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      During the first 100 days of the Trump administration, shock waves from the chaotic tariff rollout continue to send tremors through the global financial system.One hundred days of President Trump. Seventy days of whipsaw trading in financial markets. Thirty three days of losses. More than $6.5 trillion wiped from the value of public companies.For financial markets, the 9 percent drop in the S&P 500 is on track for the worst start to a presidential term since Gerald R. Ford took over from Richard M. Nixon in August 1974 after the Watergate scandal. The slump is worse even than when the tech bubble burst at the turn of the century, and George W. Bush inherited a market already in free fall.In contrast, Mr. Trump inherited an economy on solid footing and a stock market rising from one record high to another.That swiftly changed when Mr. Trump unveiled his marquee suite of tariffs on April 2 — not the first new import taxes announced by his administration, but by far the most sweeping. Volatility erupted. Wall Street frantically began to grapple with the economic consequences of the new government’s policies.The S&P 500 tumbled more than 10 percent in two days, a drop comparable to some of the worst days of the pandemic-induced sell-off in March 2020 and, before that, the financial crisis in 2008.Stocks have since stabilized, but the shock waves from the chaotic tariff rollout continue to send tremors through the global financial system.Trump’s Astonishing 100 Days, in 8 ChartsBy many measures, the opening months of President Trump’s second term stand apart from those of essentially any modern president.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

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      Mark Carney Has to Deliver on Trump and the Economy After Canada Election Win

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      The Canadian prime minister achieved a stunning political upset, running on an anti-Trump platform and promising to revive the economy. Now, he needs to deliver. Canada’s banker-turned-prime-minister pulled off a political miracle, leading his party from polling abyss to a rare fourth term in power, and securing the top government job after entering electoral politics just three months ago.Mark Carney, the country’s new leader, told Canadians that he was the right person to stand up to President Trump and that, with his economics expertise, he knew how to boost the country’s lackluster economy and fortify it in turbulent times. Now he has to actually do all of that, and quickly, as his country moves from a prolonged period of political turmoil and faces the fallout of a trade war with its closest ally and economic partner: the United States. Mess at HomeWhen Mr. Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, announced in January that he would resign after 10 years leading Canada, he created a rare opportunity that Mr. Carney jumped at. But after Mr. Carney won the race to replace Mr. Trudeau in March as prime minister and leader of the Liberal Party, he also inherited a messy situation at home that he must now urgently take on. The Canadian Parliament has not been in session since before Christmas, after Mr. Trudeau suspended its activities to be able to hold the Liberal leadership election that elevated Mr. Carney. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

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      U.N. Orders Agencies to Find Budget Cuts, Including via Staff Moves From N.Y.

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      The instructions from the office of Secretary General António Guterres were reviewed by The New York Times and came after President Trump ordered a review of U.S. funding to the agency.The United Nations, anticipating that President Trump will slash U.S. contributions to the global body, has told its departments to draw up plans for budget cuts, including through staff relocations from New York and Geneva to less-expensive cities.The instructions — outlined in a two-page memo dated April 25 that was reviewed by The New York Times — were sent from Secretary General António Guterres’s office to the heads of all agencies that report directly to him. The memo set a May 15 deadline for all proposals so that they could be added to the 2026 budget.“Your objective is to identify as many functions as possible that could be relocated to existing lower-cost locations,” the memo reads, “or otherwise reduced or abolished if they are duplicative or no longer viable.”In February, President Trump signed an executive order calling for a review of the overall U.S. funding and ties to the U.N. He withdrew the United States from several U.N. organizations, including those dealing with human rights, women’s reproductive rights, climate change, Palestinian aid and global health. In his first term, he also reduced U.S. contributions to peacekeeping efforts.Three senior U.N. officials said on Tuesday that the drastic, cost-cutting measures laid out in the memo had caught the agency’s departments by surprise and went beyond what they had expected. The officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the directive was largely viewed as a way for the U.N. to brace for potential additional cuts by Mr. Trump and to proactively insulate it from the financial blow.But the U.N. officials said the budget cuts were ordered only partly in response to Mr. Trump’s moves. The directive comes as the U.N. is adjusting to a host of financial problems, they said, from the withdrawal and reduction in financial contributions by major donors like the United States and Europe to a cash-flow crisis caused by member states’ not paying their annual dues on time and in full.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More