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Stock prices for Netflix, Disney, and Warner Bros. Discovery fell this morning after President Trump took to social media to warn of major incoming tariffs for films made overseas. This Sunday, Trump used Truth Social to announce another escalation of his ongoing trade war. In the post, Trump claimed that Americas movie industry is dying a very fast death, as Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away. The president went on to call this rise of foreign production both propaganda and a national security threat, ending by stating that, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands. Howard Lutnick, the U.S. commerce secretary, responded to Trumps rant with the brief note posted to X: Were on it. Neither Trump nor Lutnick provided any clarification on how such a tariff would be applied, or who might be affected. But this morning, production and streaming companies are already feeling the impact of Trumps proposed plan: Shares for Netflix, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Paramount Global took a sharp decline in early Monday trading, although Disney has since quickly bounced back. A potential industry-wide “chilling effect” So far, Trumps announcement has left media experts scratching their headsand incited its fair share of backlash. First, its difficult to parse how an 100% tariff on movies produced in foreign lands would actually be implemented. Experts have noted that its unclear whether this tariff would apply only to foreign-language films imported to the United States or to any production shot overseas, including those led by major U.S. studios. Its also not apparent whether this move will affect streaming services like Netflix and Disney+, which host plenty of titles that are either fully foreign-made or produced in part in another country, and whether short-form content like TV shows will also be impacted. So many questions, Simon Pulman, an entertainment lawyer at Pryor Cashman, wrote on LinkedIn. Who is ultimately charged the tariff, and on what basis? Production spend? Distributor gross? Do you seek to hit the distributors and platforms that exhibit foreign-produced content? What about Netflix, whose titles do not generate direct revenue? What happens if production occurs offshore but post happens in the US? What about cross-border productions? It’s true that producers are filming more overseas In an interview with Fast Company, Pulman said that while the implementation of Trumps proposed plan is unknown, its main goal appears to be convincing major movie studios to bring production back to the U.S. In the wake of Hollywoods 2023 writer and actor strikes, its become more common for major Hollywood films (Gladiator II, the soon-to-be-released Mission: ImpossibleThe Final Reckoning, and several upcoming Avengers films, for example) to be produced at least partly overseas. Thats because, Pulman says, the strikes caused many production companies to reevaluate costs, while, simultaneously, foreign jurisdictions like the U.K., Hungary, and the Czech Republic began instating aggressive tax incentives for producers. Already, politicians and executives from Australia, New Zealand, France, and Italy have spoken out against Trumps plan. According to the nonprofit media tracker FilmLA, film and television production in Los Angeles has fallen by nearly 40% over the past decade. Given this offshoring trend, Pulman says, the idea of re-incentivizing production in the U.S. is laudable to some extent. But he thinks adding major tariffs to overseas production is more likely to both increase domestic ticket prices and decrease the number of movies being made rather than convincing American filmmakers to shoot in the U.S. To my knowledge, every jurisdiction, whether it’s a state in the U.S. or a country like France or Canada, they don’t achieve [more production] by penalizing companies that go offshore, Pulman says. They try to attract and incentivize companies to shoot in their jurisdictions by offering various benefits to them. The worst kind of Hollywood cliffhanger At this point, Pulman adds, its difficult to predict exactly how production companies will react to Trumps announcementbut he believes its most likely to have a chilling effect on the industry. The reality is, until we know the details, and until there’s actually some kind of plan here, we’re not going to have a true sense of what this means, Pulman says. But the challenge with that is it creates uncertainty. If you’re a major streamer or a major studio, you’ve got this potentially hanging over your head.
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E-Commerce
When the email came from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jacques Agbobly at first didnt quite believe it. The Brooklyn-based fashion designer had only been in the business for five years. Now, one of the worlds top museums was asking for two of his designs to be shown in Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, the exhibit launched by the starry Met Gala. I was just floored with excitement, Agbobly said in an interview. I had to check to make sure it was from an official email. And then the excitement came, and I was like am I allowed to say anything to anyone about it? Agbobly grew up in Togo, watching seamstresses and tailors create beautiful garments in part of the family home that they rented out. Studying fashion later in New York, the aspiring designer watched the Met Gala carpet from afar and dreamed of one day somehow being part of it. Superfine: Tailoring Black Style is the first Costume Institute exhibit to focus exclusively on Black designers, and the first in more than 20 years devoted to menswear. Unlike past shows that highlighted the work of very famous designers like Karl Lagerfeld or Charles James, this exhibit includes a number of up-and-coming designers like Agbobly. The range is phenomenal, says guest curator Monica L. Miller, a Barnard College professor whose book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity, is a foundation for the show. It’s super exciting to showcase the designs of these younger and emerging designers, says Miller, who took The Associated Press through the show over the weekend before its unveiling at Mondays Met Gala, and to see the way they’ve been thinking about Black representation across time and across geography. The gala had already raised a record $31 million, Metropolitan Museum of Art CEO Max Hollein said Monday the first time the fundraiser for the Mets Costume Institute has crossed the $30 million mark and eclipsing last year’s haul of more than $26 million. Defining dandyism The exhibit covers Black style over several centuries, but the unifying theme is dandyism, and how designers have expressed that ethos through history. For Agbobly, dandyism is about taking space. As a Black designer, as a queer person, a lot of it is rooted in people telling us who we should be or how we should act dandyism really goes against that. Its about showing up and looking your best self and taking up space and announcing that you’re here. The exhibit, which opens to the public May 10, begins with its own definition: someone who studies above everything else to dress elegantly and fashionably. Miller has organized it into 12 conceptual sections: Ownership, presence, distinction, disguise, freedom, champion, respectability, jook, heritage, beauty, cool and cosmopolitanism. How clothing can dehumanize, but also give agency The ownership section begins with two livery coats worn by enslaved people. One of them, from Maryland, looks lavish and elaborate, in purple velvet trimmed with gold metallic threading. The garments were intended to show the wealth of their owners. In other words, Miller says, the enslaved themselves were items of conspicuous consumption. The other is a livery coat of tan broadcloth, likely manufactured by Brooks Brothers and worn by an enslaved child or adolescent boy in Louisiana just before the Civil War. Elsewhere, there’s a contemporary, glittering ensemble by British designer Grace Wales Bonner, made of crushed silk velvet and embroidered with crystals and the cowrie shells historically used as currency in Africa. There’s also a so-called dollar bill suit by the label 3.Paradis the jacket sporting a laminated one-dollar bill stitched to the breast pocket, meant to suggest the absence of wealth. How dress can both disguise and reveal The disguise section includes a collection of 19th-century newspaper ads announcing rewards for catching runaway enslaved people. The ads, Miller notes, would often describe someone who was particularly fond of dress or note that the person had taken large wardrobes. The reason was twofold: The fancy clothes made it possible for an enslaved person to cloak their identity. But also, when they finally made it to freedom, they could sell the clothing to help fund their new lives, Miller says. So dressing above ones station sometimes was a matter of life and death, the curator says, and also enabled people to transition from being enslaved to being liberated. The contemporary part of this section includes striking embroidered jackets by the label Off-White that purposely play with gender roles like displaying an ostensibly male jacket on a female mannequin. Views of an emerging Black middle and upper-middle class Stopping by a set of portraits from the early 19th century, as abolitionism was happening in the North, Miller explains that the subjects are Black men who were successful, well off enough to commission or sit for portraits, and dressed in the finest fashions of the day. Like William Whipper, an abolitionist and wealthy lumber merchant who also founded a literary society. They represent the beginnings of a Black middle and upper middle class in America, Miller says. But she points out a group of racist caricatures in a case right across from the portraits. Almost as soon as they are able to do this, she says, referring to the portraits, they are stereotyped and degraded. Projecting respectability: W.E.B. Du Bois and Frederick Douglass W.E.B. Du Bois, Miller points out, was not only a civil rights activist but also one of the best-dressed men in turn-of-the-century America. He traveled extensively overseas, which meant he needed clothing befitting his status as a representative of Black America to the world. Objects in the display include receipts for tailors in London, and suit orders from Brooks Brothers or his Harlem tailor. There is also a laundry receipt from 1933 for cleaning of shirts, collars, and handkerchiefs. Also highlighted in this section: Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist, writer, and statesman and also the most photographed man of the 19th century. The show includes his tailcoat of brushd wool, as well as a shirt embroidered with a D monogram, a top hat, a cane and a pair of sunglasses. Designers reflecting their African heritage One of Millers favorite items in the heritage section is Agboblys bright-colored ensemble based on the hues of bags that West African migrants used to transport their belongings. Also displayed is Agboblys denim suit embellished with crystals and beads. It’s a tribute not only to the hairbraiding salons where the designer spent time as a child, but also the earrings his grandmother or aunts would wear when they went to church. Speaking of family, Agbobly says that he ultimately did tell them and everyone about his pinch-me moment. Everyone knows about it, the designer says. I keep screaming. If I can scream on top of a hill, I will. Jocelyn Noveck and Gary Gerard Hamilton, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Running a small business demands many skills, including ambition and resilience. However, nothing beats financial preparednessespecially as the Trump administration’s tariffs loom.A new survey from TD Bank suggests that small business owners may not be as prepared for revenue shortfalls as they’d like to believe. Wakefield Research conducted the Financial Preparedness Survey among U.S. small business owners who have 100 employees or fewer and revenues of $100,000+ annually. Overwhelmingly, respondents reported that their business is equipped for whatever challenges the next 12 to 18 months may bring, with 94% saying they were ready. But most also admitted their business could not withstand temporary revenue shortfalls. In the survey, 72% of respondents said insufficient revenue for two quarters or less would cause them concern about their business’s future. And, more concerningly, 43% said longer dips, for three to four quarters, would be catastrophic. In other words, their business would not survive the impact of more than two quarters where revenue fell short. With the impact of federal layoffs and tariffs already setting in, 99% of respondents said they are assessing overall preparedness more frequently. “Now, more than ever, it is critical for business owners to be financially prepared,” Andy Bregenzer, cohead of U.S. Commercial Banking at TD Bank, said in the report. “Business owners who invest the time to create a financial plan will be better positioned to face challenges and seize new opportunities.”Still, respondents were divided on how to gauge their readiness. More than half say a positive cash flow is a telltale signal for how well equipped they are, while 37% said enough capital to cover emergencies is the most important way to stay afloat. Small business owners are not the only ones who are worried about stability in the wake of tariffs. In a recent survey of 5,000 frontline workers, 52% said they fear they will be laid off, while 74% said they expect Trump’s tariffs to impact their earning potential. Unsurprisingly, 77% of these workers said it’s small business owners, rather than Wall Street, who will be hurt by tariffs.
Category:
E-Commerce
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