The DEATH of US Power (Americans Will Suffer) (Uncut) 02-12-2025

The DEATH of US Power (Americans Will Suffer)

Donald Trump’s America First policies from taking over Greenland to imposing tariffs are now here. They’re sparking outrage and concern around the world. And you might say, why do I care? You might even support those policies and be happy to see it.

But if you’re a U.S. citizen, there’s some things you need to know and you need to prepare for. You’re not hearing this in the media, but I’m going to tell you now. And I’m going to say the same thing I say every time we talk about Trump these days.

This is not political. I am not pro-Trump. I’m not anti-Trump.

I’m a former U.S. citizen, quite frankly. I don’t really care what happens. But we have some U.S. citizen clients, and I want to talk to our American viewers about what I think you need to know that’s not being talked about somewhere else.

And so specifically, we’ve talked about the tariffs under Donald Trump’s administration and what I think that could mean for U.S. citizens, both whether you stay in the country or whether you decide to go offshore. We’ve talked about that separately. What I want to talk about today is the headlines from more of a geopolitical and a political standpoint and the influence that the U.S. has and why weakening influence will eventually hurt you as a U.S. citizen and how you need to prepare.

Everything you see when you turn on your TV or you read the news is Trump good or Trump bad. This is neutral on Trump, but what do you need to do to protect yourself? Let’s go through some of the headlines. Trump has said he’s going to take over Greenland, and that’s essential.

It started out, people thought it was a joke. Then he kept saying it. Oh, it’s not a joke.

Now, is that a negotiation ploy? Start high and end up just getting some mineral rights? Who knows? But people are concerned. People are angry. He says we’re going to take back the Panama Canal.

They’re starting those negotiations. Of course, the government of Panama is upset. To me, I look at it like, yeah, Trump, you bought a business.

The business is the United States government. Whatever deal was done by the last guy who owned the business, that stands. And that’s what Panama’s saying.

Well, might makes right, I guess. And that’s the way the world’s looking at it. Of course, wants to get tough on China, getting tough on other countries like Mexico.

More recently, we’ve seen they’re going to either shut down, or then they said maybe we’ll just reorganize U.S. aid, where the U.S. sends money overseas to help developing countries. Now, listen, I’m not taking a position on these things politically. I respect the position of, hey, we got people suffering in the United States.

Why are we sending billions of dollars to other countries? Let them deal with their country, and we’ll deal with ours. Not taking a political stand here, but I am taking the global view that if you’re a U.S. citizen, what happens in your country impacts your reputation globally. And if you want to be a nomadic capitalist, you should be somewhat concerned about that.

Here’s what I will say, because it’s not political. I spend time in up-and-coming countries, often smaller countries, like Georgia, for example, we’ve talked about. U.S. aid is in Georgia.

Quite frankly, I’m happy to see them leave. I’m sure they’re doing some influence peddling, and the money comes with strings, and they’re kind of pushing their agenda. On to other countries, and there was a big hoopla in 2024 when Georgia passed this Foreign Agent Registration Act, and people got all spooked and all upset.

I’m not going to get into the politics of that either. But for me, what I look at it as, as a former U.S. citizen, I say, yeah, should the U.S. get to come under the guise of giving aid, and then push the government around because they gave some aid, right? In the U.S., people come in and buy influence. They call it lobbying.

Everywhere else in the world, they call it corruption. The U.S. is one of the biggest players in corruption. So personally, I’d love to see the U.S. get out of the countries that I’m in.

But what I’m more concerned about for you as a U.S. citizen is the reactions that I’m seeing from around the world. Forget what the U.S. is doing. Forget what those headlines are.

Here are their reactions. Even some of the strongest U.S. allies are responding with their own effective sanctions, also known as tariffs. Look at Canada.

You don’t have to like Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau, I will give him credit for being the broken clock that is right twice a day. He said, hey, Canada’s always been here for the U.S. We’ve been a great ally.

And now because you kind of like, you know, a little bit of fentanyl comes through, 0.2%, you’re going to hit us and you’re going to use this to hit us hard because you can. Yeah, maybe we shouldn’t be your ally as much. Mexico was never as much of an ally, but they’re next door.

You know, the Europe, I mean, Trump is saying we’re coming after Europe. Listen, on things like NATO, I always agree with Trump. A lot of those countries weren’t paying their fair share.

They were not paying what they agreed to pay. I’m a big believer. Your word is your bond.

And they were not paying their share while the U.S. did. That was wrong. And Trump was right.

But now with the Russia-Ukraine war started, Europe started to say, hey, is the U.S. going to be a good ally? And maybe we should really take control of our own defense. By the way, good. But we’ll come back to why that matters in a minute.

Chinese are finding other countries to sell their goods for. If they can’t sell them to the U.S., strengthening relationships in Southeast Asia, doing more business in Mexico, doing more business in Latin America, doing more business everywhere. Africa, for example.

Southeast Asian countries, where I’m sitting right now, switching their alliance from the U.S. to China. Why? They want to get rich, too. And they see China as a lower barrier way to do that as they find new markets for their products.

And in Africa, where there’s been a lot going on that I’ve been reading in the last year and in the last month, tremendous changes there with Russia and China, not the U.S. Now you might say, hey, who cares what happens in Africa? And yes, that is the refrain when you talk to many Americans about this. We don’t need anybody else. Listen, maybe you don’t.

But I will say this. If Trump is such an isolationist, okay, don’t send illegal aliens to Guantanamo Bay. Close Guantanamo Bay and give the land back to Cuba the way Cuba thinks you unfairly leased it out.

If you’re such an isolationist, close all the military bases. Close down Guantanamo. Close it all down.

Give it all back. Retreat to your country and make your country great. And I think people are seeing a lot of talk that’s self-serving to the U.S., but yet, yeah, okay, you’re actually not that isolationist.

You can say, hey, well, who cares? We can get away with it, right? What do you learn in therapy? You can set a boundary. You have to enforce your boundary. That’s great.

The other person can also set their boundary. Their boundary does not have to be, oh, but your boundary is perfect. I love your boundary.

Thank you so much. Your boundary is amazing. I’m going to suffer so that your boundary can be enforced.

Other countries want to be successful as well. And there’s more of them. All these places are feeling like the U.S. is just not a good partner.

Plenty of these countries never really felt that. They’re getting bigger. The ones you never hear about, Indonesia, fourth largest population in the world, that they’re going to work with China.

Southeast Asia, it’s a block, the 10 ASEAN countries, basically with China. Cyrus Janssen is going to come and speak at Nomad Capitalist Live this year. You’re going to hear him saying how this region I’m sitting in right now, it’s going with China.

You can think that’s right. You can think that’s wrong. You can think they’re stupid.

You know what? It’s funny to hear that from people on the right wing that I’ve traditionally been more associated with, who say, we don’t need the government to help us. They shouldn’t treat us like we’re stupid. Why do you need to treat people in other countries like they’re stupid? Let the Malaysians make the decision for how they want to run their country and who they want to be associated with, and whether the U.S. or China gives them a better deal.

They’ve decided. It’s not you. And so we can be angry.

We can stomp our feet, like we’re 15 years old. But here’s the point. I think if you hold a U.S. passport, all this geopolitical stuff, I get it.

Some of it’s just negotiating. It’s shaking things up. Hey, the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction.

So people stepped up and said, we’re going to elect kind of a wild man to go out there and shake things up. And he’s going to say some stuff that where they say, take him seriously, but not literally. I get it.

Are they invading Greenland? Honestly, I don’t know. But if you want to tell me they’re not invading Greenland, fine, I’ll believe you. But what are countries doing? Well, you saw it not long ago with the new Chinese A.I. that caused NVIDIA stock to fall out of bed.

Countries like China, for as much as they can be maligned by U.S. politicians, they’re doing some pretty interesting stuff. And they’re selling that A.I. and cars and all their stuff all over the world. And they’re seeing more and more markets to sell that stuff.

One of the arguments that people have said when I say invest in foreign countries is just invest in the S&P 500. It’s got companies. And they’re the global leader in whatever they do.

Coca-Cola, for example. And maybe Coca-Cola is a pretty good example of that. But are car companies in the U.S. going to be selling their cars all over the world? Well, no.

Probably not really that much. Never was in Europe. Trump was right about that, too.

In Asia? No. In Africa? No. In Latin America? Decreasingly so.

So this idea that pissing everyone else around the world… Number one, if you live in the United States, if you own a business, there may be fewer markets to sell to. Or there may be some kind of economic barrier imposed. I wonder when countries are going to start putting sanctions on.

Now, it might not be a country that you really do much business with, if any business at all. But as more and more allies, and as more and more people who are deciding which way to go, say, hey, we’re going away from the U.S. That’s going to hurt you if you live in the U.S., if you run a business, if you have a job. I mean, just look at the tariffs in Canada.

They’re taking American products off the shelves. Well, if you do that long enough, and if you do that at scale, that’s going to hurt American jobs. But more importantly, what does that do to your reputation as a U.S. passport holder? Again, I’ve been sitting here 12 years, and I’ve said stuff that 12 years ago you would have thought was crazy.

I don’t know what the future holds. But if you told me 12 years from now, that there was going to be a much lower opinion of U.S. passport holders around the world, that they might be subject to increased scrutiny, that they might be shut out of certain opportunities entirely, I would not be at all surprised. I mean, when Barack Obama put Fat Kid in place, Swiss banks and many other banks around the world said, we don’t really want Americans anymore.

Sorry, too much work. We have plenty of other money. They’re doing the same thing that you’re doing.

So you’ve got a boundary. We don’t care about anybody else. We’re so great if they don’t like us, give away.

Yeah, Switzerland is even wealthier. Hey, we don’t need their money. Go away.

Two can play that game. And what did Ron Paul say? Walls can keep people in as much as they keep people out. There could be a sort of invisible wall, a new Berlin wall, as it were, that Americans, if you don’t have allies, or if you certainly have fewer allies, where are you going to go when something happens in your country? Whether it’s economic.

I mean, we help people move overseas because they just don’t like paying the high taxes in the U.S. and many other countries. We help people move overseas because they want more personal freedom. I feel a hell of a lot more personally free in all the places that I go.

I just feel it in my body. Can’t even explain it perfectly. Just feel more personally free.

Yeah, it’s great you have the Constitution. I feel more personally free. We help clients do those things.

But I really think there’s going to come a time. Listen, maybe it’s decades from now. Maybe it’s a couple years from now when Americans, when all these countries just say, you know, we’re just kind of done with you.

And we’re already kind of at that point where, you know, bankers, they just want money. You’re American money comes with baggage. Some guy from Vietnam or Colombia’s money comes with no baggage.

They’d rather take that money because money is money. And so I think that possibly could be what the future would hold. If nothing else, it’s a non-zero chance that could happen.

And I think Ron Paul’s quote on walls, keeping people in is important. But here’s why I’m politically homeless. I have a number of right-wing positions, but I think I’m out of league with the current right wing in that I believe in dual and multiple citizenship.

And you’re seeing a real pushback on that, not so much from the left wing, in the legacy brain countries, but from the right wing. It was Trump in his first term that made life more difficult for Americans who lived overseas. You’ve got almost zero press coverage of it.

Doug Casey, I’ve got my picture on the wall with him from the first time he came to know Matt Campbell’s life. He was the only person I talked to outside of my business that even knew about that. And I think I saw one Wall Street Journal article about it.

It wasn’t Biden that did that. Now, Obama made FATCA. FATCA was an enforcement mechanism for a law that already existed.

I’m no great fan of Obama or Chuck Schumer, that guy from Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, who got thrown out this year. I was very happy to see that for their role in everything from FATCA to giving Eduardo Saverin grief. And people say, oh, well, Trump’s in power.

The country’s going to be great. It’s not my job to judge that. But I do believe that fundamentally the United States is heading in the wrong direction.

Can Trump make some cosmetic changes to that? Perhaps. The culture of the United States is extraordinarily immature and childish on a global scale in terms of we don’t need anybody else. But actually, you do.

And I think that the world is kind of tiring of that. Now, you know, other countries are not going to stop Americans from getting second passports and bringing their money there just because they’re upset. Over time, there will be fewer opportunities.

And some of the special programs that Americans have had for them may go away as things get renegotiated. From my perspective, this is a time when you want to get a second passport. I’ve been getting second passports for years.

So that’s nothing new for me to tell you. But this is another reason to do it for sure. What happens if some of this stuff all comes together and the U.S. becomes kind of isolated and then something happens or somebody comes in or whatever the next thing is where you’re like, holy cow, I want to get out of here.

I want my money out of here. I want my family out of here. This is not what I imagined.

There’s going to come a time when that happens because the U.S. fundamentally is in decline. It is a debtor nation. The culture is all messed up.

Trump is not going to fix a mentality of people who can’t find Mexico on a map and who think the way that we’re talking. Let’s be honest. The culture created Trump.

Trump didn’t create the culture. The culture put Trump in power. And I think eventually that comes back as the rest of the world ascends to bite U.S. citizens in the butt.

If you never plan on leaving Gary, Indiana, yeah, your company’s ability to sell less stuff around the world may mean you make less money if you own the company or you might not have a job if you’re an employee. But otherwise, some of this may not matter to you. Stay in Gary, Indiana.

Enjoy your life as much as someone in Gary, Indiana can. Spoken as someone whose grandfather grew up in Gary, Indiana. But for those of you who want to be nomad accomplice, you want a backup option.

And I would want to get those options in place now. If you were Russian and you got your second passport back in 2019, 2020, 2021, generally speaking, as long as you did nothing untoward, you’re in good shape. You have that second passport.

Once the war started, a lot of bets were off. And so I wonder, really, at a certain point, when the U.S. talks tough on Panama, how many countries, if they do something too far, how many countries say, yeah, we’re coming together and condemning the United States? Not as many as condemned Russia. But over time, I think it potentially gets worse.

And so I’d rather have the passport now than later. I’d rather have the residence permit now than later. I’d rather have the bank account where I’m likely to be grandfathered in now more than later.

I want that stuff set up now. If you’d like our help to set it up, you can go to NomadAccomplice.com apply. We help clients who have either half a million dollar a year income or a million dollars in liquid assets or more, all the way up to the nine and ten figures.

Go to NomadAccomplice.com apply. If you’re not there yet, we get together the biggest event of global citizens at a high level with the best knowledge, networking and entertainment. It’s called Nomad Accomplice Live.

It’s coming up this September. Tickets are going on sale soon. You go to NomadAccomplice.com live and you join us in Malaysia.

You get a chance to see up close and personal what’s actually happening in other parts of the world and why you need to take this seriously.