The Price of Perspective: When International Film Tariffs Threaten the Stories That Shape Us 

by Kate Starks, Prospect Research Strategist, The Opportunity Agenda 

A story is a portal into the heart of someone else’s world. A rare invitation to live alongside them and feel what they feel. It is a tremendous gift that pulls us out of isolation, and carries us across borders, generations, and ideologies. Stories help us make sense of ourselves, each other, and our role in the world. Of all the storytelling mediums out there, film is the portal I prefer, because of how it makes me feel. 

I will never forget the dual physical and emotional reaction that came over me when I watched Parasite for the first time. It shook me to the point that I couldn’t sit still. I had to get up, pace the room, and then text all my friends, desperate to talk about it. Bong Joon Ho got us again with a jaw-dropping stunner—but it wasn’t just the ending that rattled my brain. It was the powerful cultural intervention that swept even the Oscars and got Americans talking about class inequality in ways that hit uncomfortably close to home. 

That’s the moment when story does something bigger than entertain. It’s the moment we witness our shared humanity, where dominant narratives begin to crumble, and understanding is born. 

This is the power of global cinema. It changes us—whether through deep belly laughter, a clenched jaw, or silently wiped tears. It shakes something loose and makes us want better for each other. That cultural power follows us everywhere: it invades our dreams, mobilizes our communities, and influences the art we make and witness. 

But what happens when these stories become too expensive to share? What’s lost when one of the world’s most powerful storytelling mediums is priced out of reach? 

In a recent New York Times article, it was reported that President Donald Trump intends to impose a 100% tariff on films made outside of the U.S. He frames it as a move to support American jobs and protect national security, but let’s be clear: this isn’t about economics. It’s about who gets to tell the story—and who gets to hear it. It’s about the fear of different perspectives and an attempt to control them. When that happens, we become more susceptible to propaganda, and our shared understanding is diminished. 

I remember being moved by Bong Joon Ho’s work ever since I saw The Host in 2006 with a group of friends. That moment created an insatiable spree in me—scrolling alphabetized lists of international Oscar-nominated films on Wikipedia, sorted by country, or immersing myself in Reddit threads seeking suggestions. I craved perspective outside of my own bubble. I wanted more of the kind of world-building that dared to expose reality, not escape it. 

My love for film grew so deeply I even built a Notion database to track every movie I’ve watched—tagged by mood, theme, genre, and cast for easy filtering. I wanted to collect and honor the wisdom I’d gathered, along with the ways these stories shaped my being. 

Putting financial restrictions on these films and making them harder to access doesn’t just hurt Hollywood—it punctures holes in our collective empathy, humanity, and cultural memory. 

Diverse stories make us better neighbors, parents, partners, friends, and colleagues. They challenge our deepest assumptions and move us to act. When we close ourselves off from the world’s stories, we don’t preserve anything—we cut off the oxygen that art, empathy, and memory need to thrive. This extends beyond cinema too, impacting the entire arts ecosystem and every medium that creates cultural interventions. TOA’s Director of Cultural Strategies, Sughey Ramirez, recently published Why Supporting Diverse Storytelling in Our Cultural Institutions is American AF offering a powerful and timely reflection on why our attention and support are so critical in these moments. 

The diverse stories in international films have allowed me to chase redemption through the streets of Johannesburg (Tsotsi), sit quietly in the kitchen of a domestic worker in 1970s Mexico City (Roma), hide with a family of thieves in Tokyo (Shoplifters), plant dreams in Arkansas soil with Korean immigrants (Minari), and grapple with the ethics of human disposability in a dystopia where expendability is normalized (Mickey 17) or even dancing through the hyper-stylized grief of a woman misunderstood by every institution that failed her (Memories of Matsuko) 

I’ve seen surreal love stories like Mood Indigo use whimsy to critique capitalism’s quiet erosion of joy. I’ve felt soft rebellion in Ponyo and tragic resistance in Pom Poko. And I’ve stood in the chaos of revolution with Egyptian activists in The Square, where democracy is both a demand and a prayer. 

Limiting our access to global cinema doesn’t make America stronger. It makes us smaller, more isolated, and less equipped to face our shared challenges. At a time when we desperately need to understand one another, we should be seeking out the common threads between our stories—whenever and wherever we can.