Hollywood may have long since retired the knight in shining armor trope as a vestige of the dreaded patriarchy. Even so, here he comes—riding in to save Hollywood from itself.

The film industry is in crisis. It’s not just that audiences aren’t showing up for leftist preaching sessions and endless remakes, or that they’re content to stay home and stream. It’s that Hollywood, California, quite literally isn’t making movies anymore, a phenomenon that Donald Trump rightly dubbed a “National Security threat” and pledged to take immediate action to fix.

“Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States,” he wrote on Truth Social last week. “Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated.” In an effort to shift production back home, Trump began the process of “instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”

Once the global capital of film production, it may surprise you to learn that not one of this year’s 10 Best Picture nominees was filmed in Los Angeles. Already in 2025, LA shoots dropped 22 percent in the first quarter compared to last year, while the top five locations slated for the current film season are all outside the United States (Canada, UK, Central Europe and Australia).

This is the culmination of a decade-long trend. In 2015, FilmLA (the cartel responsible for granting local film permits) recorded about 4,300 film productions in Los Angeles, along with nearly 16,000 television productions. By 2024, film shoots dropped to just over 2,400, while TV shoots plummeted down to 7,700.

The industry is well aware of the problem: grassroots groups like Stay in LA advocate for slashing red tape, while California Governor Gavin Newsom proposed doubling the state’s film incentive budget. However, these carrots only go so far in an industry committed purely to the bottom line, if its repeated capitulations to China are anything to go by. Hence, the need for Trump’s stick.

Some on the right may ask why the America First movement should give a damn what happens to #Resistance Hollywood at all? By now, it’s conventional wisdom that Hollywood and MAGA are locked in eternal war. Yet in the age of vibe shifts, there’s no reason for this to still be the case. In fact, there’s plenty of room for a cautious alliance.

The most obvious common interest is the state economy, which is what prompted a statement from Newsom following the tariff announcement that he was “eager to partner with the Trump administration . . . and Make America Film Again.”

The Los Angeles film industry accounts for hundreds of thousands of jobs and makes up a sizable chunk of the city’s economy, a self-evident interest for both the city and state. It’s not obnoxious movie stars who will lose out when production further shifts abroad, but the L.A.-based production crews and other support staff, many of whom are normal middle-class people (some of whom are even MAGA, believe it or not), and a new generation of American artists. While studio executives may chase the bottom line, the broader industry has an obvious interest in ensuring its own continued livelihood. And to an America First right, it shouldn’t matter if some (or even most) of them are rabid leftists. They’re Americans, darn it—and I’d rather see them gainfully employed than some wanker across the pond.

Yet the deeper “security threat” goes beyond a tiny segment of the national economy.

Hollywood has long been the epicenter of global cultural output, and there’s a case to be made that American hegemony is far more a result of films like Star Wars, Rocky, and Top Gun than it is of deluded State Department schemes. The world still associates “the movies” with both Hollywood and America broadly, right along with the national values influential films like these spread in the post-war era. China clearly sees the cultural power of American films, which is why it aggressively leverages its market power to pressure Hollywood into reflecting its own values while censoring America’s.

If Hollywood, for all its woes, really stops being the physical center of global cultural production, it’s only a matter of time before that huge soft power advantage gets eroded as well. “The movies” will no longer be a distinctly American export, but just another rootless global commodity claimed by all and none. Further, dispersing production to countries far less hostile to China only gives it greater opportunity to influence films, making deeper inroads in the global culture war.

Here, Hollywood and MAGA again become interesting bedfellows: Hollywood exceptionalism is vital for American prestige, and Hollywood prestige, at this late hour, requires American power to ensure its continued existence.

Hollywood’s “liberal elites” hate Trump and the nationalism he stands for because they can afford to, both materially and spiritually, as one of the most glamorized industries in the world. But those luxury beliefs become a lot more precarious without wealth and clout to fall back on. If Hollywood falls, not only will they be out of a job, but they’ll lose the prestige of working in “The Industry” entirely. You can always count on an actor’s narcissism, but for the rest of the crew, supporting policies to preserve their own livelihood is just plain common sense.

It’s naive to think Trump will ever find staunch allies among the typical Hollywood insiders, but if tariffs, or threats of tariffs, can revive the domestic film industry, his broader agenda could be met with far less hostility.  Ingratiating yourself with your critics can be a good strategy, and  having some new leverage over them can’t hurt either.

Again, it’s unlikely this will put an end to the onslaught of woke filmmaking entirely, but it’s a step in the right direction for Hollywood to understand that they’re part of America too, that America First interests also include their interests, and that our common values and aspirations need not be at odds. And if just a little bit of that shines through in the films themselves, then we’re well on our way back to the Golden Age—both for Hollywood and for America.