Trade Minister Don Farrell has claimed Donald Trump is heading in the “wrong direction” with his economic warfare after raising fears the latest film tariffs could target beloved cartoon Bluey.
This comes after Australia’s Ambassador to the United States, Kevin Rudd sternly opposed Trump’s tariff proposal during a global conference in Los Angeles, and floated the idea the world does not want to see a “tax on Bluey”.
“What happens if we all lock down our countries with competitive, punitive arrangements against each other’s movies? Mr Rudd said during a panel on forging global alliances.
“Movies are the way in which we kind of understand each other more. So I’d be all for opening this up.”
Speaking with Sky News Australia on Thursday morning Mr Farrell also extended his opposition towards the US President’s tariff announcement and advocated for “free and fair” trade.
“None of these tariffs make any sense,” Mr Farrell said.
“Prosperity in Australia and prosperity in the United States relies on the removal of tariffs not the introduction of tariffs.
“Free and fair trades is what creates prosperity in both our countries and in our region and that’s what we want to support.”
The Trade Minister further added the only message he had for Trump was that he was heading in the “wrong direction”.
Mr Farrell also commended Mr Rudd for a “terrific job” at representing Australia after he spoke out against the film tariffs which are expected to devastate the nation’s $5b industry.
On Monday Trump took to his Truth Social platform to announce a 100 per cent levy on all films “produced in foreign lands” in a bid to support the “dying” movie industry in America.
He also labelled foreign-made films “propaganda” before announcing he would instruct the Department of Commerce to begin the process of instituting the tariffs on foreign-produced movies immediately.
The US President took specific aim at countries offering incentives like savvy tax breaks to attract American filmmakers to produce movies outside Hollywood.
This targets Australia as the federal government offers the Location Offset of 30 per cent for productions which spend more than $15m. Additionally, the Queensland Government offers a Production Attraction incentive for productions with a minimum budget of $3.5 million within the state.
It currently remains unclear how the Trump Administration will apply or implement tariffs on movies “produced in foreign lands”.
