Ep. 2693 What if Things Become Unlivable?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Tom Woods Show, Ep. 2693
"What if Things Become Unlivable?" with Mikel Thorup
Release Date: September 20, 2025
Guests: Mikel Thorup (Founder/CEO, Expat Money)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Tom Woods welcomes back Mikel Thorup, renowned expat consultant and host of the Expat Money Show, for an in-depth discussion on creating an “international Plan B.” With growing global instability, civil unrest, and shifting political trends, Woods and Thorup explore why having options for relocation, second citizenship, and offshore assets has become an increasingly prudent strategy for individuals and families seeking to preserve their liberty and livelihood. Special focus is placed on the emerging opportunities in Latin America.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Case for an International Plan B

• The Need for Political Insurance [03:09]
  • Thorup frames internationalization as “political insurance,” akin to fire or health insurance:
    "We are trying to defend ourselves and protect our liberties. And we do that by spreading out the risk drastically with second citizenship, second passports, keeping some money offshore, hopefully a second home or a property that you can go to..."
• Benefits Beyond Civil Unrest
  • Civil unrest isn’t the only concern—taxation and business opportunities are major motivators, too.
  • Crafting a plan B is not a “one size fits all” endeavor; personalization is essential.

Spotlight: Latin America’s Rising Opportunity [05:46]

• Political Shift Toward Freedom
  • Latin America is highlighted as an attractive region for expats due to recent pro-business, right-leaning governments.
  • Examples include:
    • Nayib Bukele’s transformation of El Salvador’s crime landscape.
    • Javier Milei’s libertarian reforms in Argentina.
    • Santiago Peña’s efforts in Paraguay.
  • Thorup shares a notable anecdote about consulting Paraguayan President Peña:
    "He put his hand on my shoulder and said... ‘You're talking about freedom... We've got that here.'" [07:06]
• Contrast with Europe
  • Europe is described as moving in “the exact opposite” direction of freedom, with high taxes, strict regulations, and a growing surveillance state.

Country-by-Country Assessment

• Brazil [09:13]

  • Despite having a left-wing government (Lula’s regime), Brazil’s right-leaning Congress tempers radical policies.
  • Thorup’s personal ties:
    "My second child was born in Brazil. I have a couple of homes in Brazil. I'm building a hotel at the moment..."
  • Predicts Brazil will swing to the center in future elections and praises its long-term potential.

• Argentina [13:01]

  • Supportive of Milei’s direction, with honest criticism: "He said that he was going to abolish the central bank... he's joining NATO and things like that. I don't like any of that. However, he is doing a lot of good things..."
  • Posits that Milei’s greatest impact is mainstreaming conversations on liberty.
  • Argentina’s new citizenship-by-investment program could yield "one of the strongest passports in the world." [14:00]

Second Citizenships, Passports & Residency: The Practicalities

• Practical Advantages [16:02]

  • Visa-free travel is the obvious perk, but Thorup notes deeper benefits:
    • Personal anecdotes show real-life situations where a second passport eases travel and reduces bureaucracy (e.g., bypassing Brazilian entry restrictions with a St. Kitts and Nevis passport).
      "[The Brazilian immigration officer] is on Wikipedia, looking at the national anthem and the flag and everything like this for Saint Kitts... finally he's just like shaking his hand and stamps my passport." [17:32]

• Residency before Citizenship [27:32]

  • Thorup recommends securing a second residency as the first achievable milestone:
    • "A second residency is still immigration, but it allows you to live, work, and do business in that one country..."
  • Cites Paraguay as an easy and affordable residency option (no investment required, just legal fees).

• Common Pitfalls & Best Practices [30:06]

  • Mistakes often occur in structuring, tax reporting, or investments.
  • Thorup’s “Three Pillars” for a basic Plan B:
    1. Secure a second residency.
    2. Own real estate abroad (even modestly priced).
    3. Maintain offshore access to funds (precious metals or bank accounts).

Tax Strategies & the American Dilemma

• Unique U.S. Approach [20:15]

  • Only the U.S. and Eritrea tax citizens on worldwide income regardless of residence, creating double-taxation headaches for Americans.
  • Workarounds exist but require proper structuring and compliance.

• Territorial Tax Systems [24:50]

  • Countries like Panama, Costa Rica, and Paraguay only tax locally sourced income.
  • Expats with online businesses or offshore assets can potentially live tax-free (aside from VAT/sales taxes): "If you have an online business... there's no tax. Now you can live in Panama full time..."

Safety and Lifestyle in Latin America

• Personal Safety [35:11]

  • Panama, Costa Rica, Belize, and others are noted as safer than many North American and European cities.
  • Latin America offers additional advantages:
    • Organic foods, lower cost of living, strong family values.
  • "Panama is drastically more safe than Canada... benefit over benefit over benefit." [36:12]

• Assimilation vs. Expat Bubbles [37:47]

  • Thorup discourages relocating expats from sticking to “expat-only” communities.
    • Recommends learning the local language and immersing in local culture for greater fulfillment.
    • "Anybody can learn another language. You just have to have the right system..."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Political Insurance:
  "One of the biggest threats that we are under is from the political establishment. And I think having some political insurance is very important." – Mikel Thorup [03:09]

• On Paraguay’s President:
  "He stopped me... put his hand on my shoulder and he said to me, 'Mikel, I know what you're talking about. You're talking about freedom.' ... 'We've got that here.'" – Mikel Thorup [07:06]

• On second passports and surprising bureaucracy:
  "He's on Wikipedia, looking at the national anthem and the flag..." – Mikel Thorup, about Brazil’s immigration officer confronting his St. Kitts & Nevis passport [17:32]

• On assimilation:
  "Anybody can learn another language. You just have to have the right system and you have to put the time in, you need to practice and you know, don't worry about making mistakes." – Mikel Thorup [38:37]

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• [03:09] – Why an International Plan B? The Concept of Political Insurance
• [05:46] – Latin America’s Political Renaissance: Why It’s the New Frontier
• [13:01] – Argentina’s Libertarian Experiment and Second Citizenship Program
• [16:02] – Second Passports: Real-World Advantages & Funny Stories
• [20:15] – The U.S. Tax Dilemma for Expats
• [24:50] – Territorial Tax Systems: How Expats Can (Legally) Pay No Tax
• [27:32] – The Order of Operations: Residency First, Citizenship Later
• [30:06] – The Three Pillars of a Minimalist Plan B
• [35:11] – Safety in Latin America versus North America/Europe
• [37:47] – Avoiding the Expat Bubble: The Value of Assimilation
• [39:26] – Expat Money Summit: What to Expect This Year

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Event Recommendation

Expat Money Summit 2025 (October 10–12)

• Online, free to attend: expatmoneysummit.com
• Focus on Latin America and the Caribbean, featuring lawyers, developers, bankers, and global experts.

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Final Takeaways

• Creating an international Plan B is increasingly practical, affordable, and—according to Thorup—fun.
• Latin America offers robust opportunities for freedom, safety, and investment.
• Avoid “expat bubbles” by integrating locally and learning languages.
• Starting with residency, not citizenship, is the advised first step.
• The Expat Money Summit is recommended for further guidance, practical info, and regional contacts.

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Listen if you want:

• To keep your options open in an unstable world,
• Realistic advice on international relocation, citizenship, and asset protection,
• To hear practical steps (and some entertaining anecdotes) from experts who've done it.

Resource Links:

• Expat Money Summit
• Expat Money

Transcript

[Tom Woods (Intro/Outro)]

Get ready to take a flamethrower to the official narrative and learn what the elites don't want you to know. You're listening to the Tom Woods Show.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Hey, everybody, Tom woods here. It's episode 2693 of the Tom woods show. And I couldn't be happier to have our old friend Mikel Thorup back on the Tom Woods Show. He is the world's most sought after expat consultant. This guy knows more about things like international relocation and real estate and money and banking and second citizenships and second passports and everything under the sun related to those issues. He knows more about this than I have ever known about anything. He is founder and CEO at Expat Money. He has the popular weekly podcast, the Expat Money Show. He's got his wonderful Expat Money summit coming up very, very soon. We'll be Talking about that expatmoneysummit.com which is a free summit that covers a lot of these topics. There's an interesting emphasis this year, Mikel, that maybe we can get into for a few minutes in this episode about Latin America. But all the same, welcome back. It's great to have you.

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

Pleasure is all mine. I'm very happy to be back and good to see you again. We haven't had a chance to talk too much since your cruise, which was so much fun, by the way. I really enjoyed myself. My wife enjoyed herself a lot and it was so awesome to get to spend some time with you in person. And actually, this is a quick shout out to everybody if you guys are ever thinking about going on the Tom Woods Cruise. Highly, highly recommended. He takes really good care of the people, excellent food on the cruise. We had a great time. So thank you so much, Tom.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Thank you. McKenna McKellar is a world traveler. If he tells you this is a great thing to do, then you should go ahead and do it. All right, so let's talk about issues relating to you. And, you know, I think a year ago when Donald Trump was elected in the US There was an optimism among a lot of people that I think made them think, well, I don't really have to think about an international plan B, like, we've defeated our enemies now and I can just settle in. But then what I think they didn't anticipate is that, you know, the other side isn't exactly going to fold up and, you know, and leave. And, you know, we're starting to see that. Well, there are still some problems here. And by the way, I have a lot of viewers who are not from the United States, they're from other countries. So what you're saying can apply to people in any country. But you know, I'm an American. I have particular concerns about this place. And yeah, I think you never know what could happen here, how ugly things could get. And at the very least, wouldn't it be a reasonable idea to look into having some kind of an international plan B? For a lot of reasons. It could be because of civil unrest, but it could also be for tax reasons. There are all kinds of reasons people might think about this. And I think a lot of people think of an international plan B and they think like James Bond or something. That seems like something I don't do, you know, but I think more and more it is something people should think about. Like what would be your elevator pitch to why people ought to at least be open minded to the idea?

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

Well, I don't know about elevator pitch, but the way that I definitely think about it is really as political insurance. You know, we have insurance for our vehicle, we have fire insurance and flood insurance for our home. We have all these different types of health and life and, you know, death insurance and all of these types of things. But in reality, I think one of the biggest threats that we are under is from the political establishment. And I think having some political insurance is very important. And that's exactly what this is. You know, we are trying to defend ourselves and protect our liberties. And we do that by spreading out the risk drastically with second citizenship, second passports, keeping some money offshore, hopefully a second home or a property that you can go to, you know, a place that you have the legal right to live and work and do business outside of your home country. Now, you know, the nuances of that are great and everybody's plan B is slightly different. But you know, that's kind of the interesting part of this. There's no like one right answer. You don't just go to, you know, one insurance company and they're going to do this for you. You know, we have to craft this together and it takes a little bit of work. But I always encourage people to kind of think of it as an adventure, as a bit of fun. I do find that it brings families a lot closer together when they go through this. Husband, wives, children, everybody becomes a lot closer by looking at these things. If you decide to do a relocation and move overseas, certainly that strengthens the marriage. I've not actually seen any cases where it becomes too stressful for the couple as a negative from this. It's always quite A positive and I think it's more important than ever. If we look at what's going on in the US and in other parts of the world, the abuse and the aggression by different countries, governments, I don't know if has ever been as high as it is right now.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Let's say a little something about if we could. Even though I know you're going to go into this in greater depth than your summit, the Expat Money summit is free by the way. Expatmoneysummit.com you get your ticket. What is it specifically about Latin America that makes you want to focus there? Because I think a lot of Americans, when they think about what would their plan B be they're sometimes their instincts are Europe even though they know I know Europe's pretty high tax. But at least I could kind of fit in to some degree. I mean, you know, I a lot of there's a lot of English speakers in a lot of European countries and you know there are in Latin America too, but I think in some spots maybe not as many in Europe. So why Latin America specifically?

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

We're really seeing Latin America come up in freedom and I think it started in a couple of places and it's kind of spread out know obviously with Bukele and El Salvador. That had a huge impact on the region. You're looking at what was the most dangerous country possibly in the world with a murder capita per capita a murder per 100,000 at you know, the highest on planet Earth. And he turned it around in quick order. Now I know a lot of libertarians will come out and say yes but no. There was no due process and all of these types of things. But if you actually get granular and look at the situation, you understand there was really just cause for a lot of these things. People with face tattoos and little teardrops on their eyes and stuff like that. But I think this started a lot of it in Latin America. Then we have Javier Milei in Argentina who has become a bit of a rock star throughout the world, not just in Latin America, but then even other places like Paraguay with Santiago Pena or Daniel Naboa in Ecuador, Raul Molino in Panama. All of these are pro business, right leaning governments. You know I had an opportunity to sit down with Santiago Pena, the president of Paraguay, twice this year, once here in Panama because Panama has joined the MERCOSUR agreement which is basically a free trade agreement in South America and a freedom of movement agreement kind of similar to the eu. I had a chance to sit down with him, talk to him a little bit here in Panama. And then I had a bigger opportunity, a larger opportunity to sit down with him in Paraguay in kind of an unofficial meeting for about half an hour and consulted directly with the president on immigration. And we talked, talked, talked, talked. And suddenly, Tom, he stopped me mid conversation, he reached out and he put his hand on my shoulder and he said to me, mikhail, I know what you're talking about. You're talking about freedom. I was like, yes, Mr. President, that's exactly what I'm talking about. And he's like, don't worry about that. We've got that here. We've got that here. I was like, this is amazing. And I just doubled down and I just put in way more money and resources and energy into this country. These countries are so bullish on attracting foreign direct investment and attracting the right type of people, and they're not looking for socialism or anything like that. And I think these countries are really coming up. And I could go on and on about the politics of the different countries and the administrations and how things are changing, but we're not, you know, to go back to your original question, we're not seeing that anywhere else. We're not seeing that in Europe, you know, the exact opposite. Look at what Brussels is doing over there, and it's a complete dumpster fire. Look at the uk. I mean, I listened to a really excellent part of your work. Actually, I think it was one of your emails talking about the comedian who was arrested for making three tweets while he was in the United States.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Oh, yeah.

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

And landed back in the uk. It's like, that is absolutely insane. Like you wouldn't have been able to make that up, you know, just a few years ago.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Now, I'm not trying to throw cold water or anything you're saying because it all sounds great, but as you were suggesting, there are different stories for all these different countries. I'm just curious to know your opinion of Brazil. I mean, Brazil is a huge country, has a left wing government, and is that in consideration for people, given that there are these other superior options? I mean, Brazil does have some advantages despite the left wing government. What's your opinion on it?

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

So I actually really like Brazil as a country. I'd say it's one of my most favorite places to visit. Obviously, I do not like Lula or, you know, his regime. He's a convicted felon and he's not my cup of tea by any means. But Brazilians are incredible human beings, like just on every single level. I love the food the music people. My second child was born in Brazil. I have a couple of homes in Brazil. I'm building a hotel at the moment in the northeast of Brazil. And I just got back from the Amazon about three weeks ago in Manaus. Amazing country. Now there is an old saying that, you know, when Argentina goes right, Brazil goes left and when Brazil goes right, Argentina goes left and they just kind of flip back and forth. Obviously Argentina is very right at the moment, so Brazil is very left. Now what happens is Lula puts out a lot of these crazy, weird comments and they get picked up by mainstream media and circled around the world of things that he wants to do. But Congress is all very right leaning there and there's not so much that he actually gets through. There's a lot of proposals, but in the end a lot doesn't actually happen. Now I would expect Brazil to go a lot more center on the next election. We'll see obviously what happens. But I'm looking at Brazil for a long term and when you consider it's a country of 117 million people, it's the B in BRICS, it's part of Mercosur, it's of the part. They also have the Portuguese speaking alliance, which is, you know, Portugal, Angola and a couple of other countries, Mozambique and things like this. It's a pretty powerful country to be involved in. So I try not to just look at the four year term there and I try to look at the overall trend and the direction the country is going.

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[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

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[Tom Woods (Host)]

would come after me if I let you come on and didn't ask you about your opinions on Argentina.

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

So I really like what he's trying to do there. Now, I don't say that Milei is perfect. I mean, he had some crypto stuff that I don't agree with whatsoever. I think that was not a good look. You know, he said that he was going to abolish the central bank. You know, where's that? You know, he's joining NATO and things like that. I don't like any of that. I don't support any of that. However, he is doing a lot of good things and he's bringing a lot of this conversation of libertarianism and laissez faire to the mainstream, which I definitely appreciate. And I can tell you that he is influencing a lot of neighboring countries here in the region. And so I think that his real benefit will be this, will be having this conversation and discussing alternatives. It's interesting. Mile follows me on X and retweets a lot of my stuff. And I've been very honest. You know what I like that he does, and what he does that I do not approve of, but I do not like. You know, I'm always going to call a spade a spade.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Yeah.

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

But I would say overall, I'm very bullish. I'm very interested. He has a new citizenship by investment program that's going to be a $500,000 investment in the country. We don't know exactly what it's going to look like. The laws are passed, but it hasn't been finalized. Yet. But I think that, you know, he's doing a lot of the right things. They've recently applied for the visa waiver program for the United States. They had it before and then they lost it and now he's applied for it again. But this could be a very viable option for people to be able to pick up a second citizenship, use it to travel to 170 some odd countries, including back to the United States. I would assume that Canada would also get rolled into that. It could be one of the strongest passports in the world. And if you can get it by picking up a passport. Passport. I'm pretty excited about that.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

I had the good fortune of having dinner over at Doug Casey's place in Buenos Aires. And you know, Doug is not always bullish about things. You know, I mean, he's, he'll sometimes point out the negatives to you, but he's actually quite bullish about Argentina. And that made me happy. I like to see Doug happy on a, let's say a more of a bird's eye overview of the kinds of topics that you cover. There are some people who indeed would consider a full blown international plan B with full relocation of themselves and, or their businesses. And there are others who might just want to dip their toe in the water or stop short of that with a second passport or indeed a second citizenship. Now, the second citizenship question is complicated by the fact that in some places you have to have a certain ethnicity to qualify for the second citizenship. What are the benefits of having these things? Why would I want a second passport or a second citizenship, any of this stuff? Well, how does this benefit me exactly? I mean, I know that's a dumb question, but I want that to be an opportunity for you to spell it out to us clearly.

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

No, it's actually not a dumb question because there is the apparent reasons like, or the first thing that someone will think about. But I'll try to give you a couple of alternatives that maybe you haven't heard of it and reinforce why this is a good idea. So everybody always talks about visa free travel. So how many countries you can go to without having to apply for a visa? This is the one that, you know, gets discussed all the time. This country is, you know, 150 countries visa free. That one is 160. Well, this one's 165. Okay. I mean, sure, if you're going to be going to, you know, some random countries in the stands or something like that, then maybe this is going to matter to you. Now, I'm not too worried about that, although I have been able to go to some places on different passports and not have to apply for a visa. Actually, a quick story about this one, because you might find it funny, Tom. And to circle back to our conversation about Brazil, I don't know if you know, but actually Americans and Canadians require a visa to visit Brazil now. So what happened is Brazilians have to have a visa to go to the United States. So Brazil said, okay, well, fine, same for you guys. And Canada got lumped into that. So I took a group of about 20 clients to Brazil about three, three and a half weeks ago. We went to Manaus. Then we went to the northeast of Brazil and traveled up and down. But I was flying in, it was the middle of the night. I was the first row of business class. There's the first person off the aircraft. And I went up to immigration and given my passport. Now, as I said, Americans and Canadians needed a visa. So in preparation for this, I didn't want to go and apply for a visa. I looked through my passports and I was like, ah, San Keto Nevis, St. Keats. And Nevis doesn't require a visa. So I went up, I gave him the passport. He looks at it, looks at me, goes, this real. This is a real country. I was like, yeah, bro, this is real country. He's like, it's a little bit confused. Pulls up his computer, starts searching Google search, St. Christopher, St. Pete. St. Nevis goes like, this your country? Like, no, man, that's not my country. He's like, this one? Like, yeah, that's the one. So he goes on Wikipedia, I swear to God, Tom, I can see his screen from the. From the immigration. He's on Wikipedia, looking at the national anthem and the flag and everything like this for Saint Keats. He's on there for about like three or four minutes. And finally he's just like shaking his hand and stamps my passport, hands it back, and he's just like shaking his head. And so I go through. But everybody else was basically delayed by an hour in the line. They had to apply for a visa in advance. They had to pay $90. They had to, you know, stress, are they going to go through all these? And this is just Brazil. You can imagine, you know, some random country, like, Brazil is one of the largest economies in the world, and Americans and Canadians can't get into that. But St. Kitts and Nevis is a passport that I bought. It cost me about 200 and about a quarter of a million dollars. I was able to do citizenship by investment and get a second citizenship. And I mean, that's just a silly story, but kind of a fun one as well. But I'll pause there for a second and then I can probably outline another dozen reasons or stories for you.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Well, I was going to jump in with a point about Canadian versus U.S. citizenship and there being a benefit to that, but. Well, yeah, you know what, we're going to go on a little tangent, you and I, for just a minute. Just last night I was having dinner with somebody who has Canadian citizenship and I believe you have Canadian citizenship, do you not?

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

Yeah, born and bred.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Y. Yeah, Right. So he says this gives me a benefit that Americans don't have because Americans don't have residence based taxation. And so almost unique among the countries of the world, Americans in effect have to pay double taxation if they're living abroad. And Trump apparently has made noise about wanting to get rid of that, saying that's not fair and we're going to get rid of that. They took some steps toward that so far, but they haven't actually yet gotten rid of it. Can we take a tangent here to talk about what that means for Americans as opposed to people with other citizenships?

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

Okay, so there are two countries in the world that tax based on citizenship. Most countries tax on physical presence or some type of a residency. Okay? So if you're a tax resident. So the two countries that tax on citizenship are Eritrea, which is a small African country in the northeast of Africa, which is known for blatant human rights violations, and the other one is the United States. So I'll let you come to your own conclusion on their tax system. This means that anywhere you live in the world, if you are an American citizen, you must file and pay taxes on your worldwide income. Okay? If you make a dollar, they're going to want a bite of your apple, right? Doesn't matter where you live, doesn't matter if you use the services, doesn't matter if you drive on the roads, doesn't matter if you ever go back. You could leave for the next 20 years, 50 years, and you legally, by law, must file and pay taxes back to the United States. So it kind of bursts the bubble of, you know, paying for these services and your social responsibility and all of these types of things. Now don't lose heart because there is some strategies that we can use to legally reduce your taxes if we move you offshore and, you know, we help everybody with those types of things because I, I'd say probably about half of my client base is Americans. So I do work with A lot of Americans on these things. [e-mail] you'll find a lot of articles on this, on the tax strategies and how this works. Now, everybody else in the world wants to leave the country. I'm going to talk in general terms here, but once you leave the country, you're going to do something called the deemed disposition, which is basically an imaginary sale of everything you own and you're going to pay a capital gains tax at that exit. But once that's done, you're done. You never have a filing requirement or taxes owed back to your home country. So this is applicable in say Canada and Australia, New Zealand and a lot of these countries out there, you give them this last chance to tax you and then you go and then everything can grow offshore tax free. I mean, I'm being very general here and this is not individual tax advice, but this is the basis of a lot of the work is, you know, physically leaving, filing your final tax return, doing your deemed disposition, paying your exit tax and moving to a tax free or a territorial tax country. And it's very nice to not have to pay taxes. I must say, Tom, folks, whether you're

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[Tom Woods (Host)]

Well, I have a friend I've had on the show who went to an extreme that many people might hesitate to follow him in, which is he actually renounced his U.S. citizenship. He lives in Panama. I don't think he lives near you, but he, because of that, now that he's set up in Panama, I don't think he pays very much in taxes. Let's put it that way. The US Thing is completely behind him. And Panama has some kind of crazy arrangement whereby people like I think you and people like him are paying exceedingly low taxes. And I think some people might be intrigued by that angle on things.

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

So first of all, we help many clients renounce their U.S. citizenship. It's never something that I encourage people to do. It's always a very personal decision, an emotional decision. It is something that we do. I have a lawyer I work with on this. They do roughly 20% of the renunciations on planet Earth every year. I've been working with them for years, side by side. And we do everything compliantly. And I think I've had five or six of my clients renounce their US citizenship this year just in Panama, let alone the rest of the world. Now what you're referring to in Panama is also applicable in Costa Rica, in Nicaragua, in Belize, in Paraguay, in many countries in the world, world. And it's called a territorial tax system. What this means is you're only paying taxes on locally sourced income. So if you cut hair for a living, if you're a barista, if you, you know, 10 bar or you have atienda, a shop or something, you're going to pay taxes on that, no problem. But if you have an online business, if you do affiliate marketing or drop shipping or your Amazon FBA or consultant, or you work for a foreign corporation or freelancing or any of these types of things, there's no tax. Now you can live in Panama full time, you can physically be present here, but if your business is online, they deem that foreign sourced income and they don't tax foreign sourced income. This also goes as far as capital gains tax. So if you have bitcoin and you're selling bitcoin, there's no tax on it. If you have foreign stocks, there's no tax on it. There's really no tax here for income types of things. Now we do have a 7% VAT, a sales tax. Now, I'm from Ontario, so I think we've got 13. I think it was 15% when I was growing up. So it's about half. Europe is around 21%, so it's about a third of that. That's about it. I think you're. You're looking at the 7% VAT, and I don't think you're really going to pay much more than that. And that's a consumption tax, not an income tax. So you really get to choose. So you're kind of incentivized to spend less, which is fine, opposed to incentivized to work less or produce less or be less productive, which is the one that just boils my blood, you know. But there's actually a lot of countries that are like this that have a territorial tax system and coincidentally, the places that we relocate our clients to.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

I interrupted you, but I couldn't help it when we were talking about second passports and stuff. Is there further elaboration you want to make there? Because I think that might be the first step that some people might take before the extreme of I'm going to uproot my life and live somewhere else.

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

So you know what? There's probably about 20 different things and I'm actually not going to get into all of them because it can get into the weeds. I actually want to maybe not correct, but kind of reframe things. I probably wouldn't look at second citizenship as the first thing that I would do if I was getting into this. In reality, a second citizenship is actually one of the biggest milestones that you could hit. One of the easiest, fastest ones that I would do is just a second residency. A second residency is still immigration, but it allows you to live, work, and do business in that one country opposed to getting a passport as a travel document that lets you travel to other countries. Now, a second residency can be very affordable. For example, I've got a group of clients I'm leaving in two days to take down to Paraguay. I've got about 40 of my clients I'm taking down to Paraguay for an investor's tour. And almost every single person on the trip, we're doing their residency for them now. There's no investment required. It's a couple grand in legal fees. And that's it. Just. That's it. You take a trip down with me. We get your documents, we help you get your documents ready and you can get your residency on the trip. Actually, we're doing another Paraguay trip February 1st to February 9th, 2026. And I expect that one to sell out quite quickly as well. And you'd be able to get your residency that. It's expatmoney.com forward/paraguay. All the information is on that page. But this is actually like, for me, one of the very, very, very first steps is just have a place that you can go to legally, because otherwise you're going to be on a tourist visa and you can stay, you know, 30 days or 60 days, but then they're going to throw you out, you overstay your visa, you can get fined, you can get arrested, you can get blackballed from a country. So we always want to do this the correct way, and that is having a residency there. So I think that I would do that long before I would start looking at the second citizenship. The second passport makes sense.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Yeah, no, absolutely it does. But obviously you do some personal consulting with people who want your services and you help them put these packages together. But do you come across people who have made mistakes or they forgot to take into account X, Y or Z, or. There's a series of factors you want to consider before you make a decision like this. And unfortunately, they hadn't really taken all those into account. I mean, do you have a general kind of advice that you give to people? Think about this, think about this, think about this before you make your decision.

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

I mean, there are a lot of mistakes that I've seen, definitely with the structuring, with the filing, with the tax reporting, with the investment. I mean, if I were to try to break down things like, hey, here's your three things that everybody should be looking at, three strategies or three pieces of the puzzle to at least get the bare minimums of a plan B. And I'd say, you know, everybody out there in your audience is going to be able to do this. You don't need to have millions upon millions of dollars or, you know, be retired and have all the hours in the day. The three things would be, number one, the residency, which I just went through with you. Number two would be have some type of property, a home overseas. Now this doesn't need to be, once again, a million dollar property. You know, there are amazing apartments that you can get for, you know, $65,000 or a beachfront property for $100,000. That's lot plus home, brand new build, you know, for that kind of money. And you know, with these things, these are titled properties that we always work with. So it's freehold, it's not leasehold. So it's not a 20 year lease or a Mexican bank trust or any of these types of things, you know. And so what we often do for clients is we'll set up a second home for them and then we'll rent it out on short term rentals, making a bit of cash flow. And often my clients are making somewhere around 10% cash on cash return every year plus capital appreciation, which is usually around 5, 6, 7, even as high as 10% annually. So you're getting double digit, you know, teens, maybe even just under 20% annually on these. But the nice thing, Tom, is that we can do what's called a lock off closet. So we'll build in there a special room with a solid lock on it. And then you can leave an extra set of clothes in there and, and maybe a computer or, you know, some personal effects and things like that. And now you can come and visit the property and your stuff is already there. Now if you have an experience where you need to actually get out of your home country, you're already going to have some physical things there. So now you have your residency, you have a physical place to go, you've got your stuff, you're making cash flow when you're not using it and you know it's being rented. So the ACs are being used so it's not getting moldy. You know, proper property management. So no one's going to be coming in there and squatting or stealing or, you know, you can't get people out. It's there for you when you need it. Right? And then the third thing that I would do is have either some precious metals or a bank account offshore somewhere that you could get access to funds. So for example, for precious metals, we work with a company in the Caribbean. If you go to expatmoney.com gold there's a ton of information on offshore precious metals accounts, how to store them, all of these types of things. You know, on our website we have tons of information of offshore banking. And so this is your access to capital. So we've got the residency, we have your physical location, a roof over your head and we have access to capital. For me, those are the three main components of a plan B. And then once we get those set up, then you can kind of like build on them and grow them and get the second passport in another residency in another property and you know, a trust or a foundation or corporations and you know, we can build from that. But without those three, I mean, I would slow people down, I would focus on those Three things first, and then go from there.

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[Tom Woods (Host)]

We've talked a little bit about the politics there, the trends there. And you mentioned El Salvador and what El Salvador did with regard to the crime problem. What about some of the other places that you're recommending in Latin America in terms of personal safety? What can you say about them?

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

Well, I mean, I live here in Panama. It's regarded as a safe country. Not just anecdotally, but statistically as well. I mean, there are small areas here, you know, you wouldn't want to walk around at 2 o' clock in the morning with a, you know, Rolex watch or something like that, or go out and get drunk or, you know, and, and then be wandering around these areas in the middle of the night. But I mean, they're much safer than Toronto. You know, I grew up just outside of Toronto. I mean, that's not a safe place anymore. We're not seeing, you know, drunk people on the street. We're not seeing people on drugs, you know, around. I mean, I was Back in Canada last year for an event, and, you know, I was pretty shocked with what I saw back home and the level of safety. And I. I hear all these stories from my clients, what's going on? So, I mean, Panama is drastically more safe than Canada. And Canada's supposed to be known as a safe country. Unfortunately, it's not anymore. I mean, I won't pick on some of the cities in the U.S. but I think that people understand that not all of the United States is a very safe place. And then, you know, we could also throw some stones at the UK with, you know, knife stabbings and, you know, football hooligans and stuff like that. And it's like, wow, walking around those places, you got to be a lot more careful. Or Paris or, you know, I feel a lot more safe in Panama City or in, you know, Costa Rica or Belize or things like this. There's a lot of places in Latin America that are actually really, really safe. And add to that very beautiful and lots of organic food and lower cost of living and countries that have family values and are family first on these things instead of keeping up with the Joneses. I mean, it's just, in my opinion, benefit over benefit over benefit. I mean, the big one is that people will probably not believe you if you tell them that you're moving to Costa Rica and it's safer, or Panama and it's safer or something like that. But you go and do your own research. I mean, your audience is very critical thinking. You know, I've had an opportunity to meet up many people from your audience. Your audience is very, very smart, very well informed, and, you know, just go out there and do your own research. Don't just listen to, you know, what your neighbor says or your buddy down at the pub or, God forbid, you know, mainstream media or Hollywood.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

I was wondering, in some cases, at least, when people do actually go the whole way and relocate somewhere else, are there sometimes expat communities where they just wind up moving in alongside other people from the United States or Canada or whatever? Or is it more common for people just to assimilate directly into the mainstream of society?

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

Unfortunately, the expat only communities are a real thing. You know, I am never encouraging that. I really like having local friends. I like learning the local language. But I'd say, you know, the bulk of my friends are probably my clients. Like, I spend a lot of time with my clients, but I do have a lot of local friends as well, and I find it very, very rewarding. I would definitely encourage people to Try to spend as much time with the locals and, and learn their food and their customs and their history and everything like that. For me, that's part of the excitement is to try to understand people from a different perspective and not just get trapped into what I call the expat bubble. You know, I always get these excuses, you know, I can't learn the local language because of X. You know, I'm too old or I don't have the language gene or you know, I'm not smart enough or I don't know like all these kinds of things. And it's like literally anybody can learn another language. You just have to have the right system and you have to put the time in, you need to practice and you know, don't worry about making mistakes. People are usually so thrilled that you're just even trying and just kind of reframe things that you know that this is fun and you know it's okay to make mistakes. Plus there's all these health benefits I'm sure everybody knows and hers has heard for brain health, learning another language. I mean, my mother still studies Spanish over here and you know, it's one of the things that we're doing to make sure that she has good brain health as she ages.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Tell me a bit about the Expat Money Summit this year. How does it work?

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

So it is an online event. This is our fifth year doing it. I actually did it four years under this brand, one year under a previous company I ran. And all the information is at expatmoney summit.com it's free to attend. Previous speakers are the amazing Tom Woods. You've come on the event a couple of times. We had Congressman Dr. Ron Paul, we had Doug Casey who we mentioned. Doug Casey is a long term friend and mentor to me, Mark Faber. You know, lots of people your audience would probably know, but there's also a ton of people your audience would never have heard of in a million years. And that's because it's all the local lawyers I work with, the accountants, the property developers, the precious metal depositories, the bankers, all of these types of things that we need for solidifying your plan B. So this year we're going to be doing a three day event. Every other year we did a Monday to Friday, five day event, but this year we're going to try going over a Friday, Saturday, Sunday a weekend. So it's October 10th to the 12th. I'm really pumped about it. We're also only going to be doing Latin America and the Caribbean because I really do think that the future, at least over the next decade or so, is Latin America. It's not Europe, it's not Southeast Asia or something like that. I really feel like it is Latin America, as for a lot of the reasons that I've already highlighted today. So we're going to get really in depth on places like Argentina and El Salvador and Paraguay and Panama and Costa Rica and, you know, Colombia and Brazil and, you know, all these amazing places down here. And we're going to do some really in depth presentations on it. So if you're curious about any of these countries, what it looks like from a tax or immigration or investment side of things, we're going to have all of that@expatmoney summit.com expatmoney summit.com and very happy to take care of your audience and welcome them to the summit this year. Tom.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Well, I'm telling you guys, not only do I know Mikel personally, but he did me a favor once when my eldest daughter was interested in spending some time abroad. Now I can't even imagine what Mikel's one hour consulting fee is, but he waived that for us and took her questions over Zoom for an hour and it was just non stop golden nuggets and information. Just no matter how much we scoured the Internet, we would never have discovered that. So he's a good guy, but more important from your perspective, he's an extremely knowledgeable guy and anything he's involved in is going to be in the best possible sense, a fire hose of extremely valuable information. So I really do hope you'll check out expatmoney summit.com if you have any interest in this stuff at all. This is the event. And as he says, for several years running he's done this every year. You can set your watch by it. And he brings the top people to talk about the things most people, you know, people want to know about most. So expatmoneysummit.com is the website. Mikel, all the best to you and thanks so much for your time today.

[Mikel Thorup (Guest, Expat Consultant)]

Pleasure as always. Thanks, Tom. I really appreciate being on and keep up the good work. I listen to your show regularly and just such a big fan of what you do and just such a privilege to come on your program again.

[Tom Woods (Host)]

Well, my daughter, after we had that little consult that time, I want you to know that the fact that you and I are friends raised her estimation of me very considerably. That dad has cool friends like this speaks very well for him. So thanks Mikhail, once again and thank you all, ladies and gentlemen

[Tom Woods (Intro/Outro)]

make yourself and those you love less vulnerable to the regime, both mentally and physically. Get more forbidden [e-mail] and be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you listen. See you next next time.

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[Tom Woods (Host)]

Com.