What forms of prospective hell might be wrought by this threat of protectionist economic brutality? This declaration of retribution? This is rash, mad–king stuff. What are the likely consequences? I’m asking.

An echo of Network s Arthur Jensen, thundering from the heavens: “You are threatening to meddle with the primal forces of nature, President Trump, and I won’t have it! Is that clear?

“An abrupt imposition of a 100% tariff on foreign-produced films and streaming content would not incentivize but brutalize…it would be punitive and authoritarian and therefore impose a radical disturbance of natural ebb and flow, of tidal gravity…of economic and ecological balance.”

THR’s Patrick Brzeski and Scott Roxborough are reporting that Trump’s threatened 100% tariff on foreign-produced features and streaming content is more or less the fault of Jon Voight, one of Trump’s Hollywood emissaries (along with Mel Gibson and Sly Stallone).

Voight has taken several meetings, Brzeski and Roxborough have written, and has passed along a portrait of a besieged industry. Voight apparently hasn’t been urging tariffs, but with Bully Boy at the helm this is how it’s nonetheless shaking out.