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First of all: how is this an emergency? I don't follow the logic.
It's quite clear that Hollywood studios search for tax incentives both within and outside the US. That's nothing new. It is supposed to be getting worse. California is supposed to be suffering from this competition due to COL and alternatives., including in animation:
However, Hollywood gets the majority of the profit of VFX dominated films and maintains strong market share worldwide, especially at the higher budget ranges. The stories are still American-made.
The problem for film seems to be the confluence of increasing competition, COVID killing the habit and studios cannibalizing their own product. Would it really help to force all of these companies to produce and film stuff in the US, especially with AI looming? Seems like the problem of Indian VFX firms may solve itself.
I am seeing some takes on the more left-wing side that this is essentially Trump promising to break something in order to get another set of companies, and a perceived left-wing industry at that, to try to curry favor with him (he seems to be high on his ability to cause shocks merely by speaking). Though one wonders why he would. If this is a partisan thing the decay of California as the nexus for film and tv would be a win better than almost anything he could extract from them for the conservative movement.
Well I was never going to pay for the anime I watch anyways lmao.
I remember saying something that if trump actually wanted us to re-industrialize he'd say something like, "china doesn't respect our IP, so we won't respect theirs." I said that not expecting it would ever actually happen because I don't like him, but this could escalate in a really hilarious way. Actually, you know what? I'll make that my official position. If trump gets rid of american respect for foreign IP I will start unironically liking the guy.
Does China even have much IP to steal? The key to their success primarily seems to be 'maximize inputs (skilled labour, R&D talent, state support) and throughput efficiency (massive industrial scale, quick manufacturing/prototyping stage, cheap energy)' rather than 'discover special secrets that let you achieve qualitatively higher quality products'.
The US knows the 'secrets' of building the Three Gorges Dam or Huawei or BYD. You just need a huge amount of concrete and construction workforce and the freedom to move whole cities out of the flooded areas. Or you just need a huge, clever, motivated workforce, cheap energy and well-targeted long-term state support. The US has versions of Huawei/BYD in the Magnificent Seven but struggles at the cost-efficiency stage due to lacking the needed inputs at the necessary scale.
China State Shipbuilding Corporation is just worlds ahead of the US, you'd need a Meiji Revolution to match them there, the necessary inputs just don't exist in America. There's no secret - big shipyards go brrr and produce a third of the world's ships... but replicating it is quite impossible for the US.
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