Amid ongoing US-China tariff war, Beijing mulls over potential ban of Hollywood films.

After US President Donald Trump’s imposition of highest percentage of ‘reciprocal tariffs’ on China, the Asian giant is mulling over a potential ban of Hollywood films in China. So far, the US film industry has avoided the repercussions of the ongoing trade war between the two economic superpowers, though Trump’s escalation may lose Hollywood its second biggest customer -the Chinese market.

With trade relations between Washington and Beijing spiralling out of control, two widely followed Chinese bloggers posted an identical set of measures that local authorities are said to be mulling in response to Trump’s 125% tariff imposition on Chinese exports, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Following the imposition, Chinese authorities are pondering over the suggested ideas, one of which includes “reducing or banning the import of U.S. films,” as well as increasing tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods and U.S. services, among other countermeasures. The potential plans were shared simultaneously over local social media by Liu Hong, a senior editor at the state-backed Xinhua News Agency, and Ren Yi, the influential and widely followed grandson of Ren Zhongyi, former Communist Party chief of Guangdong Province.

Hollywood has already been suffering a lot of economic decline in the US due to an increasing disinterest in recent movies and serials, as well as the Chinese audiences shifting more towards their own domestic cinema. Nonetheless, China makes up nearly a quarter of Hollywood’s annual income, and losing it can be devastating for the struggling American film industry. Most recently, the Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures-produced ‘A Minecraft Movie’ topped the charts in China. The film, based on the eponymous video game starring Jason Momoa and Jack Black, took in $15 million in China. It unseated ‘Ne Zha 2,’ a homegrown animated feature that has grossed more than $2 billion.

Back in 2024, Warner Bros.’ ‘Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire’ earned a hefty $132 million China box office total. Chinese authorities hold a firm grip over every aspect of film distribution in the country, and after the country’s deteriorating political relationship with the US, the authorities have been relentlessly pushing to boost local content, particularly the propaganda films of the Chinese Community Party. China’s film regulators maintain strict censorship standards for film content and choose the release dates for all movies, reserving the most lucrative holiday windows for local Chinese films.

Despite the massive trade deficit between the US and China, the film business is one sector where the US maintains a sizable trade surplus with China, as Chinese films, despite their enormous earnings in the home market, have made little headway with mainstream North American moviegoers.

Team Maverick