The Hollywood Sign seen in 2023

President Donald Trump declared Sunday night that his latest tariff target is the film industry. A post on his social network Truth Social said, “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” adding other countries’ incentives for filming movies—which often draw production to other shores—constitutes “a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!” Trump’s directive: Authorizing the Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative to “begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”

Most people involved in the entertainment industry responded the same way: With a big question mark. It’s not clear what Trump is targeting: Films for U.S. audiences shot on location elsewhere? Foreign films with global distribution, like South Korea’s Parasite, the 2020 Best Picture Oscar winner? And are these just films for theatrical release or would it include movies and series made for streaming networks? Where and how would this tariff be applied?

If enacted, this kind of tariff could deeply impact the film industry. Many of the last decade’s top grossing movies were made outside of the U.S. Investors sharply pulled back as markets opened on Monday, with Netflix initially seeing its stock drop 4% and losing $20.4 billion market capitalization—almost the total current value of Warner Bros. Discovery. The stock market closed with smaller losses for Netflix and other entertainment companies, including Disney and Paramount Global, but no more clarity on these potential tariffs from the White House.

Not often one to agree with Trump, California Gov. Gavin Newsom entered the discussion Monday with his own proposal: The state would collaborate with the federal government to enact a $7.5 billion incentive program to help domestic movie production. It’s unclear if the White House will discuss the matter with Newsom. On Monday, Trump called Newsom a “grossly incompetent governor that allowed” the movie business to go to other countries. And it also remains to be seen if this proposal will advance. (After all, the Truth Social post that started the discussion was made half an hour after Trump used the social media platform to endorse reopening San Francisco’s Alcatraz as a federal prison, which got this response from Newsom to CBS Sacramento: “You can’t even come up with a more colossally bad fiscal idea.”)

What it does show are two different approaches to the common goal of building domestic industry. Trump is reaching for tariffs, while Newsom is proposing incentives. Each has benefits and drawbacks, not least of which is the immediate response from industry and investors. How the issue plays out—if at all—will show the way policy and business intermingle, and what truly works today.

Protecting data and advancing cybersecurity isn’t just the CIO’s responsibility, especially given how vital that information is to making future projections—and how costly data breaches can be. I talked to Abhesh Kumar, chief technology officer at financial advisory firm Springline Advisory, about how CFOs and CIOs can come together. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

A trader looks at different stock indexes on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) at the ... More opening bell in New York City, on May 6, 2025.

Last week, the markets fully recovered from the “Liberation Day” tariff announcement crash, with the S&P 500 seeing its longest winning streak since 2004. Investors were encouraged by better

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