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James Cameron has spent his career making some of the biggest and most popular film franchises in history, yet he says he isn’t planning to return to the US anytime soon to make more movies. It isn’t the weather or people keeping him away – it is the uncertainty and chaos unleashed by Donald Trump in his second presidential term that has convinced James Cameron not to return to the US.

For the last 14 years, James Cameron has lived primarily at his home in New Zealand, so he’s had to watch the uncertainty that Trump’s policies have created from afar. “It’s horrific,” he said on a podcast when asked about the second Trump presidency. “I think it’s horrifying.” Afterward, he confirmed that he had no interest in moving back to the US, though he acknowledged he would have to visit periodically for work.

The Avatar and Terminator director wasn’t just upset about the economic uncertainty that Trump’s tariff-happy economic plan had created or the upending of decades of foreign policy by backing Russia’s war against Ukraine; it was also the aggressive and continued attacks on the most vulnerable people in society that he wants no part of. “I see a turn away from everything decent,” he explained. “America doesn’t stand for anything if it doesn’t stand for what it has historically stood for. It becomes a hollow idea, and I think they’re hollowing it out as fast as they can for their own benefit.”

Being in New Zealand means that James Cameron isn’t confronted with hourly and daily updates about whatever Trump is doing at the moment, which he’s grateful for (“I just don’t want to see that guy’s face anymore on the front page of the paper.”). However, he does acknowledge that distance doesn’t create safety from the reach of Trump’s reckless rule. “We’re all in this together,” he admits, though it does sound like he’s enjoying having a little space from the news for a while.

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