Parting Shots on NAFTA : Hollywood’s Cut

The U.S. film/TV industry is a staunch supporter of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Those of us in the movie industry who look at the future see a global landscape whose form is fresh and clear. We have to export or we will shrink.

NAFTA’s intellectual-property section, as it pertains to Mexico, sets a world-class standard for the protection of America’s most wanted export: movies and TV programs. The industry returns to this nation more than $4 billion annually in surplus balance of trade, which will be running on a rising curve over the next decade. Today, around 40% of all the U.S. film industry’s revenue comes from international markets, and that share is heading higher.

Every professional who lives and works in the international arena knows with confirmable clarity that hunkering down in our own country is as out-of-date as wind-up phonographs and silent movies. As the U.S. film industry has proved, countries beyond our borders mark the map of the future. That’s where millions of new customers are. Freed of fences and trade spikes, more folks in foreign countries will want to buy what Americans make and market. With NAFTA, we will sell more American-made products in Mexico because the restrictions so limiting our sales opportunities at this moment will come crashing down.