Trump tariffs set to cause Hollywood chaos as China prepares to ban all U.S. movies

The Na’vi may have finally met their match, and we have Donald Trump‘s tariffs to blame. Many countries hit hard by Trump’s economic plan (which is obliterating trillions of dollars as you read this) are scrabbling to negotiate new deals and humiliatingly throwing themselves at Trump’s mercy.

But China has hit back and vowed that it’ll “fight to the end” against the tariffs. Today, the Chinese commerce ministry dubbed Trump’s actions as “blackmail” and dismissed his threat of a further 50% tariffs as “a mistake on top of a mistake”. The Chinese government has aggressively insisted they’ll “fight to the end if the US side is bent on going down the wrong path” and threatened to “resolutely take countermeasures”.

Now it seems we have an idea of how those countermeasures will look. As per a report from MKTNews they’re going to significantly tariff U.S. imports like soybeans and sorghum, ban the import of U.S. poultry, suspend fentanyl cooperation, and launch investigations into U.S. companies for breaching intellectual property rights. One other promise will have some other very nervous faces in Hollywood, as there will be a blanket ban on “the import of U.S. films into China”.

China is reportedly considering banning the import of U.S. films into China as part of its major countermeasures against the U.S. tariffs.

(via: https://t.co/Sf9MlU8SWC) pic.twitter.com/eR90P7qaed

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) April 8, 2025

This spells trouble for major blockbusters, particularly the upcoming Avatar: Fire and Ash. In 2022, Avatar: The Way of Water made $245 million in the Chinese market, a decent slice of its $2.3 billion eventual haul. It’s all but certain that James Cameron’s third Avatar movie will be a money-spinner, but its chances of reaching the heights of its predecessors may now be unlikely. Other movies that may be adversely affected include Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and James Gunn’s Superman, both of which will be amongst the summer’s biggest blockbusters.

Beyond the simple box office loss that a blanket ban on U.S. movies in China would cause, there’s also a sting in the tail when it comes to piracy. If these much-anticipated movies are banned from theatrical release, they will be widely pirated within the country via cam bootlegs or illegal digital copies. Pirated versions of the movies won’t stay in China, so expect them to flood Western piracy sites as well, doing further damage to their box office haul.

Right now, China and the United States are both refusing to blink, even as they hurtle towards economic catastrophic. Financial analysts are praying that cooler heads can prevail and calm negotiations begin, but with Donald Trump at the helm nursing a burning hatred for China as an economic competitor to the U.S.A., it seems likely that these “countermeasures” will indeed be enacted.