Trump's potential blockbuster tariffs on foreign films
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Trump says he's going to slap blockbuster tariffs on foreign films. Good morning, this is the Marketplace Morning Report and we're live from the BBC World Service. I'm Leanna Byrne, thanks for tuning in.

Donald Trump is turning up the tariff dial and this time he's got his sights set on the silver screen. On Truth Social last night, the president threatened a 100% levy on any movie produced outside the US. Industry groups say the plan could push ticket prices higher and spark trade retaliation. The BBC's Mariko Oi is following this one. Hello. Hello. So I presume international reaction hasn't been so positive about this one.

No, not really. But also, a lot of people are wondering how this is going to work. Obviously, 100% tariffs is a huge number. And if it's implemented in a way that some people are assuming, it could be quite significant, especially for movie industries in Japan, South Korea, also Australia, New Zealand, because we're talking about

movies that have been made outside of the United States. So we don't know whether this applies to American production companies making movies but filming abroad in places like Australia and New Zealand, or is this also going to apply to Japanese, South Korean, Chinese movies that are trying to enter Hollywood as well? So we've heard from governments of Australia and New Zealand basically speaking out for their own filming industries, while

there has been quite a lot of local media coverage, as you can imagine, about this announcement. But what we don't know is how this is going to work, because obviously the movie industry is not exactly like cars being imported into the United States. So how these tariffs would work, we still don't know the details. Yeah, there is a lot of unknowns. But the thing is, a lot of countries around the world have promoted themselves as destinations to come and film. Hungary, for example, my homeland, Ireland as well, give tax

breaks. I mean, that's quite difficult, isn't it, for a lot of those countries if this does come in? Yes, absolutely. And I think that's why we've heard from various governments already in response to Mr. Trump's announcement. I mean, the language that Mr. Trump used is also very strong as

well. He's basically calling it a national security threat, that there has been this effort to attract movies, studios to make those films outside of the United States. And he's kind of treating it as a very, very serious threat that Mr. Trump talked about even before returning to the White House. If you remember, he appointed those three film stars as the ambassadors for Hollywood, trying to promote and making it great again, in his words. Of course,

America's filming industry is still huge. You know, its revenue is still huge. But the numbers do suggest that film and production have actually gone down in the last couple of years. And that's what Mr. Trump is trying to address. OK, the BBC's Mariko Oi, thank you so much for joining us on Marketplace. Thank you. Now let's do the numbers.

Here's a number for you on that last story. According to movie industry research firm ProdPro, US production spending totaled $14.5 billion last year, down by 26% since 2022. Meanwhile, oil prices dropped sharply as OPEC Plus unexpectedly boosted production.

And in the Maldives and the Indian Ocean, a multi-billion dollar deal aims to turn the tourism paradise into a major financial hub. The government signed an $8.8 billion development agreement with a Dubai-based firm backed by Qatari Investment.

as part of its drive to diversify beyond tourism and stabilise its economy. Now, Skype was once one of the world's most popular applications, but it will officially stop operating today, although Skype for Business will continue. The BBC's Olivia Hutchinson has been looking into the platform's background.

Founded in 2003 by Swedish and Danish developers, Skype quickly disrupted the landline industry with its free audio and video calls, making the company a household name boasting hundreds of millions of users.

When Microsoft bought the platform in 2011 for $8.5 billion, the service had around 150 million monthly users. But by 2020, that number had fallen to roughly 23 million, despite a brief resurgence during the pandemic.

So why the demise? It's all about competition and the fact that Microsoft's other video calling platform Teams has been going from strength to strength in recent years. So after more than 20 years Skype is no more. Microsoft says that existing users will be able to log into the Teams app and have their message history, group chats and contacts all automatically available without having to create another account or they can choose to export their data instead.

Olivia Hutchinson with that report. Now, we heard some of the very recognisable sounds of Skype there, and the BBC's Davina Gupta has been speaking to music composer Peter Rayburn about how they came up with it all. The greeting makes a kind of... which is an attempt at a creature to say the word Skype who can't quite talk. It's just an opening of a door or opening of a kind of communication portal sound. Again, friendly, awake...

and inviting we kind of created a whole set of language for for skype it was everything from like error tones if the calls were being dropped a lot in the in the beginning so we had to create a an error tone that felt not like a kind of failure but like an attempt at getting it right if you talk about the ring what is it can you sing it to me do you remember it

The ting, ting, ting, the one that and then it sort of poops. Everything was made up from these source materials. It was just this kind of like it was like a jam. How many instrumental layers went into creating that? At least 12 for it to not feel like a electronic instrument.

Try to focus on the fact that this is people who are communicating and not machines. But you had to use some digital sounds, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, you have to use digital plugins and ways of blending things, but there's no synthetic sounds in there. That was Peter Rayburn speaking to Davina Gupta. And that's it from the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. I'm Leanna Byrne. Have a great day. Thanks for listening.

Hi, this is Katie Hafner, host of the Lost Women of Science podcast. For every Rosalind Franklin whose story has been told, hundreds of female scientists have been lost to history. At Lost Women of Science, we delve into the lives and work of women who shifted our understanding of the world around us. Our goal is to entertain, inform, and inspire anyone interested in science and history.

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