Trump assembles the A-Team to make Hollywood great again

According to Donald Trump Hollywood is ‘dying’ because of movies made in ‘foreign lands’

Another week, another crazy story from the White House. I really was hoping not to write about the orange maniac for a while, but Washington’s conveyor belt of nonsense never seems to stop.

Trump claims to love farmers, which is just as well because the President’s press office is like a runaway muck spreader, spraying shit in all directions. But it turns out the tractor is not out of control, after all. The farmer is simply an unhinged fruit loop.

Last week’s big idea was to buy Canada. Having accepted that he can no longer do this, after being told that the place is not for sale, he appears to have given up on that for the time being. His offer to annexe their country to the US predictably enraged every single person in Canada. I know a lot of Canuks and they tend to be pretty easy-going people, unless someone accidentally calls them American. I’ve seen it happen, and the resulting reaction isn’t pretty.

The idea of making Canada the 51st state not only had Canadians in a lather of fury, it also rattled Keir Starmer’s cage. Ever since Trump came to office, Keir’s been punting for the UK to land that gig. Expect the brown-nosing from Downing Street to ramp up a notch as a result.

So what is this week’s big idea? It is to Make Hollywood Great Again. According to the White House, American cinema is on its knees due to global competition. We are told Hollywood is “dying” because of movies made in “foreign lands”, and the President intends imposing 100 per cent tariffs on films made overseas.

When did this guy either visit a picture house or look at the adverts on the sides of buses? We’re literally flooded with American movies. However, it seems quite a lot of these are actually being made outside the USA. So the President has assembled a crack squad of “Hollywood Ambassadors” to rescue the country’s film industry.

This heavyweight team of political advisors is almost entirely made up of former Hollywood A-listers, and includes such political luminaries as Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight. Yes, that’s right. All this daft imitative needed was an actor best known for playing a punch drunk boxer and being marginally less articulate off-screen – and Jon Voight. What a dream team of ambassadors. Voight is Angelina Jolie’s father, a role from which she famously divorced him a few years ago. Might need to brush up those ambassadorial skills, Jon.

The fact of the matter is that Hollywood has taken a battering from Covid, the writers’ strike and competition from streaming channels. Not to mention the toxic fallout from the Harvey Weinstein case. That’s why less movies are made there. Not because of tax breaks in “foreign lands”.

Are we really meant to believe that Local Hero could have been shot in New York City, or Downton Abbey could have been filmed in some post-industrial city like Pittsburg?

OK, I accept that Hollywood is full of Brits taking jobs that Americans could do. Surely a nation of 340 million people must be able to come up with someone more talented than James Corden. But please, Mr President, don’t send him back here.