President Trump is propelling his film tariff plan into the limelight — renewing his call to tax “any and all movies that are made outside of the United States” — even as both allies and critics alike cast their doubts.

“Our movie making business has been stolen from the United States of America, by other Countries, just like stealing ‘candy from a baby,'” Trump wrote Monday in a Truth Social post, before name-checking the Golden State and slamming its Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.

“California, with its weak and incompetent Governor, has been particularly hard hit! Therefore, in order to solve this long time, never ending problem, I will be imposing a 100 percent Tariff on any and all movies that are made outside of the United States,” he continued.

The social media post marked the first time in nearly five months that the president had mentioned imposing levies on films produced outside the United States. In May, he rocked much of Hollywood and the entertainment industry with his seemingly out-of-the-blue plan.

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death. Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States,” Trump wrote in May.

“This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat,” the president added.

The idea, Trump-supporting “Deliverance” actor Jon Voight said at the time, was sparked by what was described as wide-ranging talking points that he, producer Steven Paul and filmmaker Scott Karol presented to the president right before the commander in chief publicly pushed the tariff plan.

But in an interview with ITK just days before Trump’s renewed call to action on foreign films, Paul and Karol had downplayed the tariff component that had shaken Hollywood.

“It’s not like we’re a big supporter of tariffs for the motion picture business,” said Paul, a veteran producer who is also Voight’s manager.

“What we’re a supporter of is anything that we think that can help bring entertainment back to America. And what we need to be figuring out is how to make ourselves more competitive with Europe and Canada,” Paul said, adding that they were “not hearing a lot of energy about the word ‘tariff’ for the pictures.” 

Karol, an attorney and president of Paul’s SP Media Group, questioned how tariffs could even be imposed because “a film isn’t a good, and you can’t tariff a film because tariffs apply to goods.”

“So it doesn’t work in that sense,” Karol said. 

Asked if they were acknowledging that tariffs actually “wouldn’t happen,” Paul, who noted the pair doesn’t speak for the Trump White House, replied, “It’s not that it wouldn’t happen, but I think that there would be a plan that it would be hand-in-hand with something that would work here to bring production back.”

Schuyler Moore, a leading Hollywood attorney, offered a blunter assessment of Trump’s tariff plan.

“It was very obvious it wasn’t going to happen.”

“It’s impossible to impose on digital transfers, and it would just be completely, utterly unworkable,” said Moore, a partner at Greenberg Glusker LLP who practices entertainment, corporate and tax law.

“If they want to impose a digital tax like Europe has, it would take an act of Congress. The president can’t do tax legislation unilaterally,” he added. 

But rather than focus on tariffs, Paul and Karol said, their aim is to create incentives in the United States.

“What we’re concentrating on is how we can make it more attractive and more possible to film here in America,” Paul said. One area where they said they’ve found bipartisan support is legislation that would increase the cap and extend a federal tax incentive for U.S.-made film and TV projects that allows production costs to be deducted in the year that they’re incurred. 

“Everybody wants a sizable tax credit,” Paul said. 

“Every person I talk to, everybody wants it, but we got to figure out how to actually make it happen,” he said.

Shortly after Trump’s original May post about foreign film tariffs, a White House spokesperson said that “no final decisions” about the potential moves had been made.

“The Administration is exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive to safeguard our country’s national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again,” Kush Desai told The Hill before the commander in chief appeared to double down on the plan this week. 

Newsom, a potential 2028 White House hopeful, ripped Trump’s attempt to put the foreign-made motion picture tariff in motion.

“The Governor tried to explain this to Trump months ago — when this was initially proposed — that his actions will cause irreparable damage to the U.S. film industry,” Newsom’s press office wrote in a Monday X post, linking to a news article detailing the decline of Hollywood studios’ stocks following Trump’s tariff threat.

“Today’s move is 100 percent stupid,” Newsom’s office said.

In May, Newsom, a potential 2028 White House hopeful, responded to the president’s foreign film tariff vow by urging the Trump administration to adopt a federal film tax credit program.

“I called on Trump months ago to work with California on expanding our successful $750M @FilmCalifornia Tax Credit into a national program,” he wrote in a social media post Monday.

“Instead of just waving his arms and yelling ‘TARIFFS,’ how about we do something that will actually work?” the governor asked.

Paul and Karol — who have been dubbed Hollywood’s “Trump whisperers” — might be among the few film industry pros who have the ear of both the president and Newsom. The duo described Newsom as “very supportive” of “everything that we plan on doing at the federal level” when they met with him in June. Paul and Karol said they were poised to “discuss next steps” in a call with Newsom scheduled for this week, a plan confirmed by the governor’s office.

When he originally said he would be imposing the tariff on movies made overseas, Trump said he would authorize the Department of Commerce and the U.S. trade representative to begin the process “immediately.” Neither of the government agency’s offices replied to ITK’s request for comment about the status of the president’s directive. 

Trump has made tariffs a key component of his economic and trade policy, saying the United States and its taxpayers “have been ripped off for more than 50 years.”

In recent days, he announced a number of product-specific tariffs — on everything from pharmaceuticals to heavy trucks and furniture — that are poised to take effect this week. The Supreme Court will consider in November whether Trump can use the emergency powers he has cited to justify his sweeping tariffs.

But Moore said taking the tariff battle to the multiplex “would destroy the film industry, which is the single and most profitable source of trade surplus, which is what Trump is so fond of.”

“It would be shooting in the foot the one industry that has the largest surplus. The whole thing is just completely absurd,” Moore said.

But Paul said Trump, a former “Celebrity Apprentice” host who has a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, simply “loves the entertainment business and wants to see it healthy.”

“Everything that he and everybody can figure out to help the industry is what we would do,” he said.

“So if it’s something that was just going to hurt the industry, obviously, then I don’t think any of us are going to be supportive of that.”