WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:05.500 More and more Westerners are telling us they think their country is going in the wrong direction, 00:05.500 --> 00:07.540 and they want an alternative. 00:08.100 --> 00:11.880 Western countries have more and more chaos, more and more geopolitical friction, 00:12.220 --> 00:16.460 more and more high taxes and regulations with no end in sight. 00:16.920 --> 00:21.580 And while the BRICS countries may not be a perfect alternative, they are an alternative. 00:21.860 --> 00:26.140 And today I'm going to walk you through residents and citizenship options in the BRICS Alliance. 00:30.000 --> 00:33.500 And at the end of the episode, I'm actually going to tell you about some non-BRICS countries that 00:33.500 --> 00:37.200 emulate some of the parts that Westerners might like about BRICS countries. 00:37.640 --> 00:42.300 Why might you want a residence permit or a citizenship in a BRICS country? 00:42.460 --> 00:45.580 Well, quite frankly, because you feel like the West is going in the wrong direction, 00:45.580 --> 00:49.660 and you would like to have a plan B in a place that is different. 00:50.020 --> 00:54.340 There's nothing wrong with wanting to have citizenship in a European Union country, 00:54.420 --> 00:58.480 if that's where your ancestors came from and you qualify for citizenship by descent. 00:58.480 --> 01:03.280 You can be American and say, I'm going to get my Polish citizenship, and now me and my family 01:03.280 --> 01:07.820 have options all throughout Europe. Nothing wrong with that. But what a lot of people look at is 01:07.820 --> 01:13.520 they look at, hey, there's nowhere to go because I live in Canada and the US and the UK aren't much 01:13.520 --> 01:17.400 better. You need to look at places that are substantially different. I'm not saying you've 01:17.400 --> 01:21.120 got to move there. I'm not saying you've got to put all your money there. I'm not saying you 01:21.120 --> 01:25.720 got to put all your hopes on that country. But if you had a residence permit or a citizenship 01:25.720 --> 01:30.620 in a country that was in BRICS or had those features, what would you do? Well, you'd have 01:30.620 --> 01:35.340 geopolitical and currency diversification. What are you seeing? Countries around the world are 01:35.340 --> 01:40.120 pushing back on new manufacturing hubs. China is obviously a well-known manufacturing hub, 01:40.360 --> 01:44.760 but you don't hear much about some of the smaller ones. Vietnam obviously is up and coming. 01:44.940 --> 01:49.760 They got into a spat with the US recently, and they're seeing even in places like Cambodia. 01:50.320 --> 01:53.420 I was reading about Malaysia is becoming a bigger hub. We've talked about Turkey over 01:53.420 --> 01:58.460 the years. I was even reading about Benin in West Africa, one of the biggest cotton exporters, 01:58.580 --> 02:03.120 and now they're trying to do more value-add manufacturing. What are you seeing? The West 02:03.120 --> 02:09.920 and the so-called global South aren't getting along as well. When you see the US wants to ban 02:09.920 --> 02:14.700 TikTok, well, what's China going to do? Ban US businesses. We run a global business at 02:14.700 --> 02:19.900 no matter capitalist. I don't only sell to Americans far, far from it. That means no 02:19.900 --> 02:24.800 matter what happens, our business can keep going. Even if there's a recession in the US or the US 02:24.800 --> 02:29.640 decides, hey, we don't want to allow dual citizenship anymore. We're going to make it harder. I can 02:29.640 --> 02:33.500 still run my business. If your business is only selling to one place and you're only collecting 02:33.500 --> 02:38.880 money in one currency, not just at a financial risk. Increasingly, I see a geopolitical risk 02:38.880 --> 02:43.040 as this BRICS effect takes hold and more countries say, we don't want to put up with your 02:43.040 --> 02:47.120 terms and conditions the way we used to. Obviously, having access to other currencies, 02:47.120 --> 02:51.340 having access to open bank accounts in other places, having access to diversify, 02:51.700 --> 02:55.840 and just an alternative to what some are calling the woke West. Let's get into it. 02:56.200 --> 02:59.380 Let's start with India and China, two of the original five members of BRICS, 02:59.520 --> 03:03.660 basically out of the question in terms of residents and citizenship. Now, if you get a 03:03.660 --> 03:06.880 job in China, you can get a residence permit. We're not talking about that. We're talking 03:06.880 --> 03:12.260 about optionality for entrepreneurs and investors who don't want to necessarily move to the 03:12.260 --> 03:16.300 country, but they want the option to move there if time gets tough, or they just want 03:16.300 --> 03:20.340 the option to, hey, as a resident or a citizen, I can open a bank account and I've got a different 03:20.340 --> 03:25.220 place to park my money. I may not park my money there now, but I can in the future. These are 03:25.220 --> 03:29.740 two countries that are tough. If you're of Indian origin, look at getting your OCI. Obviously, 03:29.840 --> 03:34.820 China has Hong Kong, its own SAR. I think banking there could be potentially interesting. 03:35.280 --> 03:39.660 They do have a residence program now back on the table in Hong Kong with CIEES, 03:40.660 --> 03:45.180 but that is a rather niche program for most folks. It certainly is an expensive program. 03:45.180 --> 03:49.000 I'm not convinced you always have to be a resident to have a bank account. We're working 03:49.000 --> 03:52.480 with our vendors in Hong Kong. There's always some new banking option available, 03:52.680 --> 03:55.820 and that could be one to look at from the asset protection standpoint, 03:56.340 --> 03:59.940 but India and China largely off the table. Russia, one of the other regional five, 04:00.100 --> 04:05.640 we've covered that with their anti-woke visa. They also have a golden visa, Russian citizenship, 04:05.840 --> 04:09.780 relatively toxic fees. CIEES, if you want to bank or do other business outside of the 04:09.780 --> 04:13.140 Western financial system. So that's obviously been a change in the last two and a half years. 04:13.720 --> 04:18.620 Brazil, not a tax friendly place to live, but a good residence program, and they do have a 04:18.620 --> 04:24.320 residence program if you're willing to invest, if you are willing to marry a Brazilian. If you're 04:24.320 --> 04:28.400 willing to have a child in Brazil or adopt a child from Brazil, you can get citizenship 04:28.400 --> 04:32.600 in as little as one year plus about a year to process that. There is a time commitment to 04:32.600 --> 04:36.660 be there in the ground, but when you can get citizenship soup to nuts in as little as two 04:36.660 --> 04:41.140 years, or as an investor, if you wanted to spend time there, it's going to be a couple 04:41.140 --> 04:46.540 years longer. One of the most neutral passports. So an alternative to Russia, where it's very 04:46.540 --> 04:52.060 not neutral. Brazil, nobody really has a beef with the Brazilians. Very high quality passport, 04:52.360 --> 04:57.040 travel to the UK, travel to Europe, travel to Russia, travel to Asia. Obviously, you can travel 04:57.040 --> 05:00.320 all over South America, which I think for people who are looking for alternatives to the West, 05:00.460 --> 05:05.300 I mean, one of the lowest populated land masses in the world is South America. I mean, 05:05.320 --> 05:09.540 it's a very small percentage of the world's population for having so much land, good land, 05:09.540 --> 05:14.820 arable land. So people who are looking kind of that plan B, Brazil could be an option. 05:15.200 --> 05:19.560 You can get the residence permit. You can work towards that citizenship. And people like the 05:19.560 --> 05:24.320 lifestyle. They like the social lifestyle. You've got good quality health care in some parts of 05:24.320 --> 05:29.340 the country. So Palo is the New York of Brazil. I've got some friends who absolutely love it 05:29.340 --> 05:33.480 there. And then you've got friends who like the safer parts like down in the South, 05:33.740 --> 05:37.700 Florianopolis, for example, comes up. And so Brazil could be an interesting place to have 05:37.700 --> 05:41.240 a toll. I think South America in general, it's, and again, I'm going to come back to 05:41.240 --> 05:45.180 how you can replicate some of these BRICS features without actually going to the limited 05:45.180 --> 05:49.560 number of countries in BRICS in a minute. South Africa was looking at very affordable waterfront 05:49.560 --> 05:55.580 property of their friend in Monday today from Cape Town in Cape Town. I would not want that 05:55.580 --> 06:00.300 passport. I've advised a few friends of mine to not go back through their family and get that 06:00.300 --> 06:04.780 passport because of the whole financial expatriation they have there. It's not at the level 06:04.780 --> 06:09.040 of the U.S. yet, but I have some concerns about South Africa's taxes. I would look at other 06:09.040 --> 06:13.720 African passports. And I think you have Egypt now with its citizenship by investment program. 06:14.160 --> 06:17.440 You've got one candidate running in Ghana who says they should offer a cheap 06:17.440 --> 06:21.040 citizenship by investment. There's other ways to get African passports. 06:21.640 --> 06:24.800 We're constantly looking into new ways and we're going to talk about some of those actually 06:25.480 --> 06:29.980 at Nomad Capitalist Live, our four-day annual event you want to get in the waiting list for 06:31.580 --> 06:37.660 nomadcapitalist.com slash live. But South Africa is the one I would skip. So those kind of five main 06:37.660 --> 06:43.240 original members, I think Brazil is interesting for a number of reasons. The taxes there are 06:43.240 --> 06:46.920 certainly not the most friendly. So if you're living there full-time, that's going to be a 06:46.920 --> 06:51.720 challenge. But if you have an option there, if you've got a residence permit, that could be 06:51.720 --> 06:57.280 a reasonable way to diversify into the original BRICS. And what I would encourage you to 06:57.280 --> 07:01.780 do is to learn from people who live in these countries, learn from people who come to these 07:01.780 --> 07:07.260 countries. They could be good places to live, have a residence permit or invest. We had a gentleman 07:07.260 --> 07:11.160 named Vussy from South Africa speak at the last Nomad Capitalist Live and he talked about all 07:11.160 --> 07:15.180 the opportunities in Africa. You want to understand from people who are actually 07:15.180 --> 07:19.100 on the ground how it works. That's what we do. That's what our network does. 07:19.460 --> 07:23.520 Let's talk about some of the other countries that are now joining. So Saudi Arabia, 07:24.080 --> 07:28.880 permanent residence by investment program. You're going to basically pay $213,000. 07:29.620 --> 07:34.580 Yes, you could get a Caribbean citizenship for that same donation and that might be a better 07:34.580 --> 07:39.820 place to start. But if you're building all your options out, who else spoke at Nomad 07:39.820 --> 07:45.040 Capitalist Live in the past? Zubi. Zubi grew up in what was then a much more conservative 07:45.040 --> 07:50.300 Saudi Arabia. He said it's nothing like you see on the media. What do they have there? 07:50.300 --> 07:55.520 They've got strong banking. As a resident, you can access that strong banking. That can be a tunnel 07:55.520 --> 08:00.280 access to that banking. By the way, one of the things we've talked about at Nomad Capitalist 08:00.280 --> 08:04.700 Live the last couple years is how you get him a bank in one country and that bank has branches 08:04.700 --> 08:10.280 in six different countries and now you can move around. And so Saudi Arabia, the Middle East and 08:10.280 --> 08:14.560 also Southeast Asia is one of those regions where you've got banks that have locations 08:15.100 --> 08:19.600 in some further flung places that are harder to access as a non-resident. So you get the 08:19.600 --> 08:25.260 residence permit that opens up financial banking, certain investment opportunities in some cases. 08:25.900 --> 08:30.180 Saudi Arabia is obviously very tax friendly. That region is becoming a little bit less 08:30.180 --> 08:35.360 tax friendly for businesses like the UAE's 9% tax. Some of the other countries are going to 08:35.360 --> 08:40.080 roll it out from a personal standpoint. Very, very, very tax friendly. Saudi Arabia, 08:40.560 --> 08:44.260 one of the more conservative countries compared to certainly like Bahrain, for example, 08:44.260 --> 08:50.640 which also has a residence permit. You could do that instead. But Saudi, they're in the news. 08:51.080 --> 08:56.460 They're saying, oh, should we have the Petro Iwan? They're really looking at all their options. And 08:56.460 --> 09:01.760 so if you want a country that has that sort of heft geopolitically, you're not going to be a 09:01.760 --> 09:06.860 citizen, but you can get that residence permit and it is for life for that donation. As long as 09:06.860 --> 09:11.480 you keep your nose clean, it is for life. The United Arab Emirates, UAE, Dubai, 09:11.480 --> 09:16.660 they have numerous different residence programs. Start a company. Again, you're going to be paying 09:16.660 --> 09:22.760 9% tax, nine times out of 10. So it's not the most tax friendly place to go. You could buy a property, 09:23.320 --> 09:29.320 get a golden visa. Again, unless you are a really heavy hitter in the business scene 09:29.320 --> 09:36.680 and they give you citizenship, as they did, you know, Kevin O'Leary, Pavel Durov and others. 09:36.680 --> 09:41.780 I think that, you know, they've done hundreds of those. Otherwise, you're going to have a residence 09:41.780 --> 09:46.400 permit. What was interesting about, you know, the Middle East is their residence programs are 09:46.400 --> 09:49.780 getting better and better. Not saying their corporate tax policies are getting better, 09:49.800 --> 09:53.480 but their residence programs, they want to keep people there. They're realizing they don't 09:53.480 --> 09:58.520 just want people to go home when it comes time to retire. They want to keep people there longer 09:58.520 --> 10:01.960 and longer. It's like, you know, how do we keep people listening to our radio station for 10:01.960 --> 10:06.020 longer? How do we keep people, you know, coming back to Starbucks more often? And so, 10:06.040 --> 10:14.040 Saudi and the UAE are part of BRICS and looking to do that. Egypt has recently joined. They've got 10:14.040 --> 10:18.880 105 million people. Most people don't realize the heft that some of these countries are adding 10:18.880 --> 10:22.640 in terms of the population. Same with Ethiopia where there's no play and they've got some 10:22.640 --> 10:27.320 problems right now. Egypt, not necessarily a place to live, but you can get a citizenship 10:27.320 --> 10:32.540 there. And so when I mentioned African passports earlier, what we've talked about for years is 10:32.540 --> 10:36.420 the African Union saying, let's all get together more. We're seeing, you know, slowly but surely 10:36.420 --> 10:40.340 some evidence of that among different countries. Hey, all Africans are welcome here. They're 10:40.340 --> 10:44.320 opening up. There could be increased residence rights, increased investment rights, things like 10:44.320 --> 10:48.040 buying, you know, land that's off limits to foreigners, certain business opportunities, 10:48.220 --> 10:51.440 freedom of movement. It'll be interesting to see what will happen in the next generation 10:51.440 --> 10:56.320 for people with African passports. Egypt, while not in sub-Saharan Africa, is in Africa. 10:56.320 --> 11:01.160 And so they are now in BRICS as well. That could be an option with a citizenship. They have a 11:01.160 --> 11:05.100 residence and citizenship. Again, you want to consider what impact that's going to have. 11:05.500 --> 11:09.780 If you've got some fancy Swiss bank, we've talked to some of them and they say, okay, 11:09.820 --> 11:13.500 we don't like here. Egypt, it's not on an audio list. We're happy with Egypt. 11:13.900 --> 11:18.920 But you want to understand holistically what any residence program or citizenship is going to 11:18.920 --> 11:24.900 do to you. That's what nomadic countless helps our clients figure out. We have more information, 11:25.460 --> 11:30.800 more vendors, more resources and a bigger in-house team that exclusively does research and development, 11:31.000 --> 11:35.320 exclusively does client strategy. And I think any other company out there, because we are 11:35.320 --> 11:39.640 dedicated to giving you the most options, you don't call and everybody gets sold to Egypt. 11:40.160 --> 11:43.440 We'll talk about all the different options and if BRICS is something that you're thinking 11:43.440 --> 11:47.500 about, hey, here's one place you can get citizenship. You don't have to live there. 11:47.840 --> 11:52.480 You don't have to pay taxes there. You barely have to go there. You have to invest some 11:52.480 --> 11:58.200 money. And if that matches your criteria, we can help you find properties that are not from 11:58.200 --> 12:03.340 developers that are marked up in a big way. We can help you find the very limited number of 12:03.340 --> 12:06.960 secondhand properties that are reasonable to buy. And you can get that citizenship in a matter 12:06.960 --> 12:11.400 of months. And we help people do stuff like that. I'm not saying that's the option for you, 12:11.460 --> 12:15.840 but it's an option. And then you get the future joiners. Kazakhstan's talking about 12:15.840 --> 12:19.580 getting in. I think Central Asia is a very interesting region. Jim Rogers, 12:19.580 --> 12:25.720 we've interviewed him. He spoke at Nomad Capitalist Live in 2023. He's a big fan of Uzbekistan, 12:26.040 --> 12:32.160 but Kazakhstan will in some ways be kind of the hub of that region. In the same way that Serbia 12:32.700 --> 12:37.360 is still somewhat the hub of both the open Balkan free region, just the western Balkans in 12:37.360 --> 12:42.560 general, Kazakhstan could be that for Central Asia. They had talked about a residence by 12:42.560 --> 12:47.740 investment program that has not really materialized. Uzbekistan does have a residence by 12:47.740 --> 12:53.060 investment program. That's an area that we're focusing on, deepening our ties in and learning 12:53.060 --> 12:58.100 more about. I think Central Asia could be interesting. Kazakhstan, looking at joining Brics, 12:58.280 --> 13:03.960 maybe Uzbekistan is an approximate player to that. Turkey wants to get in. The only NATO 13:03.960 --> 13:08.420 member that wants to be in Brics. And they would bring a substantial population. 13:08.940 --> 13:13.300 Interesting how the world has changed that for 20 years, Turkey wanted to be in the EU. 13:13.300 --> 13:17.760 What did Jim Rogers say? He said, you know, it's probably the point where 13:18.400 --> 13:22.760 the EU needs Turkey, more than Turkey needs the EU. And they are going their own way. 13:23.400 --> 13:27.460 They're building up manufacturing. Yeah, they have problems with inflation. And yet people 13:27.460 --> 13:31.340 don't understand, you can get citizenship by investment in Turkey. You can buy second-hand 13:31.340 --> 13:37.060 properties. My property has gone up dramatically in value in dollar terms, in lira terms, 13:37.160 --> 13:41.800 and just through the roof. But in dollar terms, my property has gone up in value. And if you 13:41.800 --> 13:47.200 want a residence permit, or if you want a citizenship, you can get that with an investment. 13:47.620 --> 13:50.860 And now you have the option to live there whenever you want, but you don't have to. 13:51.060 --> 13:54.840 You have the option to travel as a citizen of that country, but you don't have to. 13:55.180 --> 14:01.860 And so at a time when the big players, the US, the UK in particular, are pushing away 14:01.860 --> 14:06.000 the so-called global south and saying, we don't want your companies doing business there, 14:06.360 --> 14:09.660 you think those companies are just going to go under? No, they're increasingly 14:09.660 --> 14:13.880 finding strength and working with each other. And I think that's where a lot of money is 14:13.880 --> 14:17.080 going to be made in the next generation. And if you want to be part of that, 14:17.240 --> 14:22.360 there's going to come a time when being Turkish will have less baggage potentially than being 14:22.360 --> 14:28.380 American. Now Turkey may not be the best example, but certainly being Brazilian 14:28.380 --> 14:32.460 is going to have a lot less baggage than some of these Western passports, because 14:32.460 --> 14:36.080 Brazil is not going to be out targeting everybody. Brazil is trying to make their way. 14:36.080 --> 14:39.460 Look at what embrayers doing with their planes. They're taking advantage of Boeing 14:40.380 --> 14:46.240 having a lot of problems with their planes, with their spacecraft. And an embrayer, 14:46.480 --> 14:51.340 they're not going to take over from Airbus and Boeing, but they are making some moves 14:51.340 --> 14:55.280 into certain markets to take some share. And so Brazil is going to have a different 14:55.280 --> 15:00.360 attitude towards global trade than what the US and the UK and Australia and Canada 15:00.360 --> 15:07.700 are doing. They're basically trying to keep their claw on power as the last gasps come out. 15:08.280 --> 15:13.880 Why do you want to be a citizen and a resident and a taxpayer and a person with all your assets 15:14.700 --> 15:19.540 exclusively in a country where the last gasps and the claws of power are taking place? 15:20.160 --> 15:23.520 These are some options. They're not all perfect. You want to make sure they work 15:23.520 --> 15:28.320 together. So those are eight bricks residents and citizenships and some that won't work for 15:28.320 --> 15:32.840 you and some that might not work for you. But here's the alternatives that I promised you, 15:33.260 --> 15:35.900 the non-joiners that still have some of the same mindset. 15:36.740 --> 15:41.020 El Salvador's president has picked on the West and said, hey, how come they get to get away 15:41.020 --> 15:46.420 with this stuff and we don't? And he's really kind of leading that kind of messaging. El Salvador 15:46.420 --> 15:50.320 is not talking about being bricks, but they have some of those same positives. They're 15:50.320 --> 15:55.240 talking about tax friendliness. I've been a little disappointed quite frankly for all. I love 15:55.240 --> 16:00.960 the vision. I'm not singing of execution, but El Salvador has the right message. Whether you like 16:00.960 --> 16:07.200 it or not, Venezuela, obviously going through some stuff right now. The best time to buy property 16:07.200 --> 16:12.940 there was probably the end of the 2010s, maybe 2020. Since then, ultra cheap property is gone. 16:14.000 --> 16:19.060 And so if things in that country improve, I think that could be an interesting counterbalance 16:19.060 --> 16:25.220 at some point. It is a place where it's more of like blood in the streets kind of 16:25.220 --> 16:28.940 but I'm going to be checking that out and not too distant future. I have friends who have been 16:28.940 --> 16:33.760 there and said, you can live a great life. We have people who live there and work in our company 16:33.760 --> 16:38.360 who have great lives. Serbia is another country. The Western Balkans we've talked about for years, 16:39.660 --> 16:43.060 maybe a bit more palatable to a lot of folks. Eastern Europe, we've had a lot of clients 16:43.060 --> 16:47.680 want to move to Serbia, to Montenegro, Montenegro less involved with that. I think Serbia, the 16:47.680 --> 16:54.640 one country that while it's not applying to join bricks, it is not NATO. It doesn't want 16:54.640 --> 16:59.640 to be part of NATO on like Montenegro and North Macedonia which got in. They are doing their own 16:59.640 --> 17:03.040 thing. And so you can find a country that has come with the same mindset as bricks, 17:03.260 --> 17:06.980 leave us alone, we're neutral. Yeah, we can work with the West and we can work with the 17:06.980 --> 17:10.460 Northwest and we're not going to be judged and we're not going to be bullied and we're going 17:10.460 --> 17:14.460 to take part in multiplicity and we're going to make our own citizens wealthier and having 17:14.460 --> 17:18.660 the ability to go there and take part in that. It's not the worst thing. Maybe buying 17:18.660 --> 17:22.320 property at a time when it's very affordable priced and could go up in values, not the 17:22.320 --> 17:27.320 worst thing. That's how you involve bricks in your plans. It's not about having to say, 17:27.420 --> 17:32.460 I'm leaving the US forever and now I'm joining Russia. Let's not take it to the extremes. 17:32.840 --> 17:36.540 Let's talk about optionality. I think it's what bricks offers to solve a lot of the 17:36.540 --> 17:42.540 problems the West has brought and you can see what happens and make decisions as the situation evolves.