How About Some Tariffs on Hollywood?

Last week’s numbers showed how resilient the American economy truly is.Business investment is booming.Consumers continue to spend.Jobs are outperforming.One of the big themes emerging is a smaller role for the federal government, and a much larger role for private business investment.You could say: entrepreneurs 10, federal bureaucrats 0.Not everything in the world is a function of tariffs, even though the liberal media would have you believe that.For example, yes, outsized imports were front running potential tariffs.Yet the 22 percent surge in business investment that showed up in GDP — and almost the same number showed up in the industrial production report released by the Federal Reserve — is all domestic equipment production.The moral of the story is: how private investment responds to incentives.President Trump is re-incentivizing the private sector, with 100 percent bonus depreciation, retroactive to January 20, for not only business equipment and machinery, but building new factories, as well.Plus, there’s a 15 percent corporate tax for Made in America production.These are huge incentives that are already reigniting private business. If you produce in America you don’t have to worry about tariffs, as the president always says.And when you reignite private business, you are reigniting profits, job creation, higher productivity, and real wages. All this is tied up in the reconciliation bill, which is moving through Congress.The stock market has recovered, another good sign.Sometimes, Mr. Trump talks about short-term disappointments, but I don’t think that’s necessary.I think that the entrepreneurs are already moving to take advantage of the re-incentivized supply side of the economy, sponsored by Mr. Trump and his policies. And, of course, a couple of trade deals would help the economic growth story move ahead even more — with countries like Japan, India, South Korea, Vietnam it could be on the front burner of potential deals.Who knows, maybe even some news on that this week. Yet any deals have to be great deals.Mr. Trump’s policy of reciprocal fair trade aims to level the playing field — and he’s right about that.I’ll make two brief last points regarding tariffs and deals. First, we must remember that Communist China never adhered or lived up to the Phase 1 deal of January 2020. Never.And, the flow of precursor fentanyl materials continues unabated, according to the experts.And finally, Mr. Trump is talking about 100 percent tariffs on movies not made in America, I guess especially not made in Hollywood.And I know my friend Jon Voight is working on that. He’s one of them.Yet the idea of protecting Hollywood is … well … gee, kind of seems like not a good idea.Or maybe President Trump really means he wants to tariff Hollywood — until they put some decent movies out.That’s probably the subject of yet another riff at another time. From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.

How About Some Tariffs on Hollywood?

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