China said yesterday it would immediately restrict imports of Hollywood films in retaliation for President Donald Trump‘s escalation of US tariffs on imported Chinese goods, though analysts say the impact is likely to be minimal.

After three decades during which China annually imported 10 Hollywood movies, its National Film Administration (NFA) said Trump’s increase of tariffs on Chinese imports would further sour domestic demand for US cinema in China after years of decline, a Reuters report from Beijing stated yesterday.

“We will follow market rules, respect the audience’s choices, and moderately reduce the number of American films imported,” the NFA said on its website.

Chris Fenton, author of ‘Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA and American Business’, said the move was a “super high-profile way to make a statement of retaliation with almost zero downside for China.”

Hollywood studios once looked to China, and its giant film market, to help boost box office performance of movies. But domestic films increasingly have outperformed Hollywood’s fare in China.

Now, US films account for only 5 percent of the overall box office receipts in China’s market. And worse for Hollywood, China taxes that small amount 50 percent before any revenues go back to the USA,” Fenton told Reuters. Hollywood studios receive only 25 percent of China’s box-office whereas other markets give studios double that, he said.

Earlier this week, two influential Chinese bloggers suggested that one response to Trump’s tariffs would be to ban or restrict American movies. Some exhibitors dismissed the possibility, noting China’s Film Bureau had given Marvel’s ‘Thunderbolts’ an April 30 release date.

The restrictions arrive before the start of the summer box office, with such major releases as ‘Mission Impossible — The Final Reckoning’, which may mark Tom Cruise’s last appearance in the long-running franchise, a new ‘Superman’ movie from ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ filmmaker James Gunn, and Marvel’s new take on ‘The Fantastic Four’.

Seth Shafer, principal analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan, predicted the restrictions would have limited impact.

In 1994, China began importing 10 American films each year through the internationally recognised revenue-sharing distribution model. Imports including ‘Titanic’ and ‘Avatar’ became box office smashes in the Chinese market, making actors such as Leonardo DiCaprio and directors such as James Cameron household names among Chinese film lovers across generations.