Weeks after suing the Trump administration over President Trump's troublesome tariffs, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is offering to work with the White House. After Trump suggested putting 100% tariffs on foreign films to revitalize the American film industry, Newsom on Monday offered to partner with the administration to create a federal film tax credit program worth at least $7.5 billion, per the Washington Post. A rep for Newsom said the program could be the largest government tax initiative for the film industry in US history and the first at the federal level.
Newsom said California was "eager to partner with the Trump administration to further strengthen domestic production and Make America Film Again." "America continues to be a film powerhouse, and California is all in to bring more production here," he added. The proposed program would be modeled after California's Film and Television Tax Credit Program, which has generated more than $26 billion in economic activity and supported thousands of jobs across the state since 2009, Newsom's office said. The office said a federal tax credit would create US jobs and boost American stories.
The White House had no comment. Though Trump said he wants to help the US film industry, he is unlikely to "want to be seen subsidizing California entertainment workers just as the tariffs are starting to negatively affect US factory workers, farmers, truckers," one expert tells the Post. "I think Newsom is calling Trump's bluff." On Sunday, Trump had claimed Newsom was at least partly to blame for what he said was the destruction of Hollywood. "You have a … grossly incompetent governor that allowed that to happen," he said, per the Hollywood Reporter. (More Hollywood stories.)