Shaun Newman Podcast - #901 - Mikkel Thorup

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

Mikkel Thorup is a renowned expat consultant and the host of The Expat Money Show, a long-running podcast started in 2017 that focuses on offshore living, wealth protection, and international investment. As the Founder and CEO of Expat Money, a private consulting firm, he helps clients legally reduce tax liabilities, secure second residencies or citizenships, and build portfolios of international investments, such as real estate, timber plantations, and agricultural land.To watch the Full Cornerstone Forum: https://open.substack.com/pub/shaunnewmanpodcastGet your voice heard: Text Shaun 587-217-8500Silver Gold Bull Links:Website: https://silvergoldbull.ca/Email: [e-mail] Grahame: [phone]Bow Valley Credit UnionBitcoin: www.bowvalleycu.com/en/personal/investing-wealth/bitcoin-gatewayEmail: [e-mail] Use the code “SNP” on all ordersProphet River Links:Website: store.prophetriver.com/Email: [e-mail] Money SummitWebsite: ExpatMoneySummit.com

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down on the show notes, the week in review, we've started to release them again. That's going to, you know, I hear it all the time. You know, five shows a week. Some people are just, you know, it's the first thing they do in the morning. And a shout out to all those fine folks. There's others that pick and choose.

Well, Substack, We try and make it easy with the week and review. It's about a two to three minute video, just highlighting the week's shows, and you can kind of get a feel for each guest, and maybe I'll give you some ideas on, ooh, I want to go back and listen to that. The other thing it does is there's some, you know,

we put up some pictures from behind the scenes. There's a paid portion for paid subscribers. If you want to get, you know, behind the scenes footage of maybe the new studio or some things going on podcast-wise, you can always become part of that as well. The new studio, we got the value for value wall, and well if you want to be on that you just shoot me a text

that's down to show notes and we'll see what we can do there if you're listening or watching on Spotify Apple YouTube Rumble X make sure to subscribe make sure to leave a review make sure to do all those lovely things now shall we get on to that tale of the tape today's guest is the founder and CEO of expat money a private consulting firm that helps clients legally reduce tax liabilities secure second

residencies or citizenships and build portfolios of international investments. I'm talking about McKell Thorup. So buckle up. Here we go. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Today I'm joined by Mikel Thorpe. McKell, great to see you. Been a while, my friend.

Been a little while. How have you been? It has. Yeah, well, I was checking the numbers. I'm like, when was the last time McKell was on? You were first on on episode 594, and then you were on episode 776, which was earlier this year. Of course, in between those two, you're on stage and Lloyd at the first.

cornerstone forum. So, you know, we had a stretch there where we're bouncing off each other every six months or so. Um, but, yeah, it has been a little stretch. I think I'm into the nine hundreds now, which is, you're an absolute machine. We've been doing our podcast for almost a decade. We're at about the 400, just under 400, I think. Yeah, but this is, this is what I do. Yeah. You know, and, uh, as I was just telling you, I left Canada for a month and like, you know, you come back and you're like, oh, maybe there's nothing to talk. Maybe there's nothing to talk about And then in the first like two days, it's just like an avalanche of stuff going on. I'm like, oh, no, here we go.

So how are things where you're at? Beautiful. Sunshining, nice weather, no taxes. I'm in Panama City, Panama. It's amazing. It's consistently amazing. I love it down here. No taxes sounds nice.

Very nice. Don't fund the enemy. I mean, I think that's what it comes down to. Don't fund the enemy. So, well, you have your, we just started average. at the expat money summit coming up, which is free to attend. Let's start there, shall we? Sure.

What do you, you know, like everybody always asked me, what are you talking about in the Cornerstone Forum this year? And I'm like, oh, we got these four topics. These are the speakers coming in. McHale, you got a whole host of experts, pros, characters, however you call them, coming in to do your Expat Money Summit. What and why should people, you know, give it some time? So this is our fifth year running the summit.

And we're going to do something a little bit different this year. We're going to really focus only on Latin America. And normally we do a five-day event, but we're going to do this one on three days. So normally it's Monday to Friday. We're going to do this one Friday to Sunday to try to get the weekend crowd. But the event's always a huge success. Usually we get between six and eight thousand people who attend the event. We do a lot of work all year round to prepare for it.

Like it is so much work to put this event on. My friend Doug Casey is coming back to speak. Congressman Dr. Rompal, I think might be speaking. He spoke the last four events of mine, three or four events of mine. So we'll have some big names there, but then a lot of the lawyers and accountants and property developers and precious metal depositories and things like this that I work with. Now, we're going to focus just on Latin America because that's really where we're seeing a lot of the freedom happen these days is in Latin America. Maybe we can chit-chat about some of the cool things that are going on in Latin America and in the different countries down here.

We're not seeing it in Asia. We're certainly not seeing it in Europe. And Canada's a dumpster fire, as you well know. So, I mean, you're not going to find freedom there either. But in Caribbean, Central America, South America, there's some pretty exciting things happening down here. But anyway, tell me about the exciting things. I'm curious. Yeah, absolutely.

First off, if you guys want to go to the summit, if you want to get a ticket to the summit, it's expatmoneysummit.com. Okay, here in Latin America. And if I may interject, it's in the show notes. So just scroll down, folks, and you can probably find expat money summit, and you can just go there, and it's free to attend.

It's all online. I think I'm not being misspeaking. No, you're absolutely correct. We put it on for free every year, because I need people to understand what's going on. And we're really focused on solutions. Like we're not a problems organization. It's not all about, you know, digging deep and finding more and more about the problems.

We're only, our whole purpose in life is what are the solutions? There's other people that they are able to show all the problems that are out there in the world. I'm here just to be like, okay, we know all the dark stuff. Now, what do we do about it? So that's what we focus on. And I try to get this information out to as many people as humanly possible. And that's why I said we've got, you know, hopefully this year we'll maybe get, I'd say, 10,000 people who will attend the event during the weekend.

So a solid crowd for sure. So Latin America, where do you want to start? You want to start in Panama? You want to start in El Salvador? I want to start in El Salvador. You know I do because I find El Salvador to be very, very enticing. Everything I hear come out of that place, I'm like, sounds really smart. Sounds really interesting.

Your leader speaks very well. something we just don't have here in Canada right now. 100%. I first went to El Salvador in 2003, 2004 when I hitchhiked and back to back through Central and South America for 18 months. And I had an opportunity to go back last year. I had some meetings with some of the ministers there. I sat down with some of the top law firms. I was there for several days and it was just meeting, meeting, meeting.

There's some really exciting things happening there, but there's still a lot of work to be done in El Salvador. Don't make no mistake. Now, obviously, everybody knows the story about Bitcoin and how they made it legal tender and all of these things. Now it's not a demand that you have to accept ETC, but they have the option of it. It's still a US dollar economy. But I think the much more exciting thing was the safety and what he was able to do in the country. Now, a lot of people will scream from the rooftop about human rights violations. and how could you arrest all these people without due process and stuff?

It's like, guys, if you've got, you know, tear-drop tattoos on your face, you know, I don't think that you're, like, I'm sure you've done something wrong. Like, you didn't just accidentally do that. Like you, you had some understanding what a tattoo, a face tattoo meant, right? But he locked up tens of thousands of people. The country went from the most dangerous country in the world to arguably the safest country in all of the Americas, by any account, by petty crime, by violent crime, by murder, by any of these types of things, El Salvador is ridiculously safe. And I was walking around there last year and I was talking to everybody, like I said, all the way from the ministers in the government to the lawyers

to the dude on the side of the street selling papuces, you know, like everybody in between. And everyone was so bullish on what's happening in the country and a genuine love for Buckele himself. Like, I didn't hear one bad word. His approval ratings are so high, like, like mid-70-some-odd-percent. 77%, 78, don't quote me on the exact, but high, high to mid, or mid-to-high 70s in approval rating. What's ours back home? Like, any? Like, do we have? Like, or at least with Trudeau, I mean, I know his were unbelievably. 27%. I actually, I'm like, what, does anybody at this point, I don't know, maybe I'm just speaking for myself. Does anyone think that it matters would,

or any of our leaders approval rating is anymore? They don't care. They're not, they're not going to all of a sudden, uh, it doesn't matter. It like, this, this thing in Canada for the last 10 plus years has just been an absolute train fire. And it continues on under Carney's watch.

So, agreed. Now, so he has a very good approval rating. People love him. People are so happy about the safety. And I think that this is amazing. Now, what's next for El Salvador?

I think that the actual, the most exciting thing about El Salvador is that they're actually looking at best practices of other countries and bringing in independent consultants. And I'm not just talking about McKinsey or something like this, but like really independent, like alternative media and, you know, Bitcoin people and, you know, all of these different people that have knowledge that they want and they're trying to attract this talent. Like it's a true value proposition here. And they're not too proud to ask questions. They don't think that they know it all.

That's so rare. Do you have any idea how, like, how rare that is when you talk to government? Like they literally think that they know everything and the best way of doing everything. And even if they admit it's not the best, just like, well, this is how we do it. This is our culture, even if it's wrong, you know. But these guys are out there and they're trying to attract the best out there to make their country amazing. And I think that we're going to see a Singapore on steroids. I think we're going to see like a Dubai on steroids over the next couple of decades. They have things to fix. I'm not saying

they don't. They legit have a lot of things to fix. But they're bringing in good people to help do that. So I'm super, super excited about that. And hopefully I will have some news in the next several months to announce about El Salvador some work that I'm going to be doing there. But I'm super bullish on the country. You know, just some thoughts. When you talk about government officials, you know, being open to asking questions and bringing in intelligent people that you kind of like, hey, what do you think? You know, this comes at a time in Canada where Nova Scotia has banned walking in the forest, have fined a guy, $28,000. $1,000 for defying that order.

Wow. They said, well, how much rainfall until we can go back in the forest? And they, you know, they kind of dance around the question, right? Like, you know, like one of the things that always, I just, I literally just had on a lady who's looking at green energy, right? Here in Canada, the big projects coming in. And the, what was the stats? I wrote it down.

She said, you know, they're just talking about megawatts that are produced by these technologies. And we're pushing everywhere here in Western Canada for these big wind farms. And they produce 0.8 of a watt. Meanwhile, we sit on one of the largest natural gas reserves, and it's 1,000 watts per meter squared. And you're like, that's a thousand times, what are we doing? What are we doing? And that's not even to get into all the environmental, different things that go on.

But you don't have politicians, at least not from where I sit. Maybe somebody can steer me different that actually want. to listen to that because the political climate is, nope, we're saving the planet. We're pushing forward to that. And if that means we're going all wind and solar, that's what we're going to do. So when you talk about a government being able to handle listening to people and maybe learning some things, it's refreshing, to be honest. 100%. And I think if you actually look at those windmills, my brother, my stepbrother is an engineer for the windmills in Ontario. And you do a little bit research, those things are horrible.

Like, they're the worst. They're made out of a material that basically does not decompose whatsoever. Like, it's going to be there at a thousand years from now, from what I understand. Then you need to use diesel trucks to be able to mine all of the materials anyway, so you're burning fossil fuels. And then the things don't work half the time. They've got to be angled just right, and the wind can't be too slow and it can't be too fast and all of this. And they're a complete eyesore. And then they just slaughter birds like it's going out of fashion. Like it's just well and here's here's here's a stat that Tammy Neymouth just gave me. I'll read it here.

A German study estimates wind turbines kill trillions of insects annually possibly contributing to a 75% biomass decline. So you can imagine if you have you know pollinators and all the different things that make an ecosystem what it is and you remove 75% of that. It's like what do you think is going to happen? What do we think it's going to happen here? Oh yeah. But Sean, we're saving the planet, mate. That's right. Curious.

You know, like El Salvador or Panama, all these different places, are they pushing giant solar wind projects like this? Here in Panama, we have hydroelectric. We have got, I think it's 22 power, 21 or 22 power plants. And I think like 19 of them are hydroelectric. So we're naturally green in this country anyways. That's just because of what we got. That's not because of some green agenda.

Like, I'm happy, you know, like another country, you know, we can talk about us Paraguay, which is a complete energy superpower. They have the Itapu Dam, which is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, produces 90% of the country's power. The rest of the power is also made up by hydroelectric and then they sell the electricity to Brazil and provide roughly 20% of Brazil's energy. Country of Brazil's 217 million people, and this one hydroelectric dam is providing that much electricity. So, I mean, if you want to do green, at least do something that's like, effect. like do something maybe you have sitting under your feet like i know you don't i know you don't like stare at everything can you were saying before we started that you're like you know it all better than i do

i'm just you know i'm helping people exit and and find different ways and everything else but you do talk to people from all over the world sure does anyone go wow canna's really leading it here like they're doing a great job of i don't even know what anymore other than hockey maybe um that we do great. Like, I mean, they just had the meeting. Trump had all the NATO leaders and Canada's not even there. It's like, this is where we've fallen to. Like, to me, it's so evident.

But I am curious, you're sitting in Panama. You know, this is your home country once upon a time. Yep. Like, do anybody you run into go, oh, yeah, like Canada's going to have a boom here in the next decade. So I left Canada in 2000. And I remember traveling around as a late teenager. early 20 year old with a big red backpack and a Canadian flag on it.

And I was super proud. And I traveled through Europe and Asia and Africa and people would see the flag and they'd come up and talk to me. You know, Canada was the best country in the world. Everybody like, sorry, Americans, but everybody knew that Canada was the best country in the world. All right. That's how I was brought up everywhere I would go.

That's what we were told. Everyone wanted to go to Canada. It's so beautiful. You have so much there. It's so amazing and things like that. And you know what? When I meet people now, they feel sorry for. me. It's embarrassing. They shake their head. They're like, what's going on back there? Like,

nobody wants to go to Canada anymore. We're an embarrassment. Everybody looks away. Like, it's like, it's really disgusting. And it feels horrible, to be honest. But the whole world watches what's going on in Canada and is absolutely shock. Like, no one can believe how far a country can fall. And I mean, I have Australians and Kiwis who are making fun of Canada. And I mean, like, that was a prison, Australia was a prison colony, and it has returned to where it has come from, back to a prison colony. And they're still, like, embarrassed about what's going on in Canada. Well, you'd written this, that tweet. I was saying you had a couple of banger tweets that I enjoyed. One of them was, most people wait until the storm hits to start building a shelter.

The smart ones build while the skies are still blue. Your offshore strategy is that shelter. We've been talking about, you know, we just briefly did El Salvador and there's, we can dive in any other country you want to. So happy to riff on a couple of different countries because I've been following the geopolitics and visiting a lot of places. I mean, I've been to almost every country in Latin America at this point and most of the countries multiple times over a 20, 25 year history. So I've seen it, you know, at different stages. I briefly mentioned Paraguay, but to dig a little bit deeper into Paraguay, I think this is a country that people should really pay attention to. It is a landlocked country in the middle of South America. It's kind of in the shape of a heart.

It is a completely food, water, and energy independent country with a right-leaning pro-business government. If done correctly, it's a tax-free country. It's a territorial tax system. They have a very attractive tax system. even if you are a tax resident and you have to pay taxes there, it's 10%. It's a flat 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, percent, personal, and 10 percent dividend distribution. So it is a really, really nice tax system. No progressive, no 51 percent, none of these types of things. So it's a very good tax rate. But like I said, if you, if it's a territorial. So if you're not earning your money in Paraguay, it's a zero percent, which is even better than 10. I mean, in my not so humble. opinion, you know, 0.0% is the correct amount of tax. And it's completely energy independent as we just talked of with the hydroelectric. Now, it's really cool because I had an opportunity twice this year to sit down with the

president of Paraguay, Santiago Pena. Once was here in Panama, I was invited to a small luncheon. He was coming in because Panama has joined the Mercosur, which is basically like a South America version of the EU. It's like a free trade agreement and a free settlement rights between South American countries. So Panama has just joined this. So the president of Paraguay was in. I got an invitation and I got to go for that.

And then about a month after that or maybe two months after that, I was down in Paraguay. And I had an opportunity to sit down with the president of Paraguay for about half an hour and just one-on-one, just talking through things and giving some advice on immigration and what they could do in the country and all these things. And I was explaining to him, you know, this is what Canadians are looking for, Americans are looking for. We went through this whole laundry list. And suddenly he stops me, Sean, and he puts his hand on my shoulder. And he says, Mikkel, I know what you're talking about. You're talking about freedom. I was like, yes, President Santiago was like talking about freedom.

He's like, we have that here. I'm like, fuck yes. This is amazing. This country is unbelievable. And I just like double down. And I am putting in so much money. and I am just, everything is just going in all this country. The whole table is set.

And it's right there. And it's just going to grow like crazy. And this is South America. This is Latin America. If you're sitting here in Canada, which, you know, a healthy chunk of the audience is, right? I mean, we're across Canada. We're into the States. Certainly we got some people in different parts of the world.

But you're sitting here in Canada and you're going, I've never even been to any of these countries, let alone. and just picking up tomorrow and see you. With the first thing you'd suggest, I'm going to assume, A, the expat money summit would probably be a nice thing. You could just kind of start to, oh, okay, that's kind of interesting.

Maybe that's something. Would you suggest people come and visit? Or would you be like, no, the thing to do is make a phone call or two? No, so I am a big proponent for visiting a place. Yes, do your research. And yes, attend the summit. I think the summit's a good place. You know, you can subscribe to the podcast, learn, educate, things like that.

But we do a lot of trips and tours as well. I'm taking a group down in September. And I think we've got, like we oversold the event. I don't even know how we're going to fit everybody in. But we've got about 40 people. I'd say about half our Canadians who are coming down for a week with me in Paraguay to take a look around. And we'll be doing two trips next year in Paraguay. We'll do a trip to a couple of other countries.

Many trips to Panama. We'll probably do one to Costa Rica. We just got off one on Brazil. So I definitely suggest visiting these countries. But you need to do something. And as per your point, you know, people have never been there before. They've never heard of these before. Well, that's because Canadian society does not want you to.

Public education and the media and the government, they don't want you to know about these other countries because they want you to believe that you're paying your fair share is working for CRA for six to seven months of the year completely for free, you know? And if you're doing that, how are you going to have money to be able to travel? How are you going to, you know, most Canadians get a couple weeks off of holiday and that's it. Like, you know, people are not taking extensive vacations all over the world in jet setting and stuff like that. Canadians work because our taxes are unbelievable and because the wages are not great and the currency is terrible at the moment.

It's lost so much of its value that everything is more expensive anywhere you go. So Canadians will travel in Canada, but not nearly as much overseas as we did 20-some-odd years ago when I started. So, I mean, you've got to break out of that vicious cycle, and you've got to do something because there's a lot of opportunity out there. Well, and I just, you know, like, one of the things with the podcast that when I get to travel with it, go see different areas now. In fairness, I haven't been to where you're at. Lord Willan,

soon enough, maybe. We'll venture. You're invited to come speak again this year. You didn't take me up last year, but maybe 2026, March 6 and 7th, we'll make that happen. In fairness, I couldn't get the flights to work. I was like, oh my God. It's not like it's... We've got a travel agent. Don't worry about it. We'll book the flights next time. It's going to be fun. So in our conference, John Newman announced he's going to be speaking at the FAP money, wealth freedom and passport. McKell, Mikel, I invited me last year and I went online.

I'm like, oh, this would be super cool. And then I looked, I'm like, how on earth am I going to do this? You know, I was just, you've had Matt aired on the show, correct? Yep. I just had him on a meet, like recently, super recently. So literally, I was chatting with Matt yesterday because he was supposed to be on the podcast today. and he's trapped in an airport because you got air Canada strike going on and it's delaying flights everywhere so then he's supposed to be flying like he has a planes trains and automobiles story right now

he's trapped in an airport I met hopefully by the time this is out you've you've made it home but he I'm like is John Candy beside you because I'm like he is literally at one point they were going to a conference and he was talking to this girl standing beside him well they're both going to the same conference so they rented a car and drove there because they had no other way to get there because they couldn't get the flight. And he's been delayed. He got on the plane again and they booted them all off again because they had problems. I'm like when I was looking this past earlier this year when you invited me, I looked and I'm like, there's just no way.

There's no way I'm going to be able to pull this off. So I tell you, you got a booking agent. Okay, we'll talk later. There's supposed to be direct flights from Calgary starting Q4. Really? Calgary, Panama City. Yeah. Oh, that would make life a heck of a lot easier, wouldn't it?

100%. Yeah, instead of flying to Pearson and then Pearson down, you can fly from Calgary. So. Hmm. Okay. We're off topic here. Argentina. Let's talk about Argentina here for a second because I watch all the different, you know,

things on Malay and, you know, it's like, I don't know, are they all great or some of them great? I don't know. You're a little closer to the situation. And you've already pointed out how the government of Canada maybe doesn't share everything going on in the world. What do you see at Argentina? So big fan of Javier Mule, I think he's amazing. I've actually been quite fortunate.

He retweets a lot of my stuff. He follows me on X and retweets a ton of my stuff on Argentina. So that's cool. And I mean, people were a little bit doubtful at first, you know, what he would be able to accomplish. I was excited but cautious, but I am becoming a true believer. I think that he's doing some really amazing things for that country. The too big in my field that he's put forwards right now is doing a citizenship by investment. The proposal is for $500,000 U.S. dollar investment in the country,

and they will make you a citizen and get a passport. Now, what the investment is, I have no idea. None of us do. It's not released at the moment. I'm literally getting updates from our lawyers down there on a weekly basis. But if it was a real estate investment, you could buy a home or something like that, that could be pretty exciting and have a new life in Argentina. The second thing that they're doing is they've just applied for the visa waiver program for the United States.

So if you had an Argentinian passport, being able to travel visa-free back to the U.S. would be really, really awesome. Currently, the only country in Latin America that has a visa waiver program with the U.S. is Chile. my third child was born in Chile. Oh, that's another thing. I think since the last time we've talked, I think I had two more kids. Now I'm at number four.

So I had the first one in the UAE, second one in Brazil, third one in Chile, and we just had a little Mexican. My wife and I, we flew down to Mexico three days before she was due with the baby. And now we have a little Mexicana. So that's cool.

Do you get... Chile is the only country that does visa wave. program. That means that for Americans, they could renounce their U.S. citizenship, get an Argentinian citizenship, and then still travel back to the U.S. but not pay U.S. tax residents anymore, visa-free. So that's cool. Every time you bring up birthing tourism, I'm like, I just want to talk about it for a few minutes because I'm like, if nobody's heard you before, they're going to go, what, did you just say you've had four kids in four different countries? And one of the things that I find so interesting

about talking to you, Mikkel, is, um, it's another tweet you had. You say, borders aren't walls, they're doors. And if you've only got one key, your current passport, you're locking yourself into one future. And honestly, that's hard for, you know, a person who's only ever held his Canadian passport to wrap his brain around. But the more I listen to talk, I'm like, that makes sense. And, and then marrying an American and seeing how the borders deal with someone who has that, right and all of a sudden now my kids can get it it's like all of a sudden it changed everything you're

like oh that is interesting like this is just huh i've been led to believe you hold a passport and i realize there's a ton of people that go and get their you know whether they got heritage to britain or you know when i was playing hockey in finland there was guys that went over there with their finished passport who were from canada um you know you're extensive traveling and now having a wife and having kids every time you pick a new spot to have them. Like, do they stare at you weird when you're having your kid? Or is it not that big a deal? They're really excited, actually.

They're really flattered because it's like you could do this anywhere in the world and you've come here. And my wife is from China. So it's like this occasion and Chinese woman have come into a random hospital in Mexico to give birth. And it's like you're a celebrity. and everybody wants to meet you and come and say hello and things like that. Like when we did in Chile, they were over the moon.

They were like, wow, you chose Chile. Like, you know, they were so proud that that's where we went to have the baby. And so there was like no animosity, no negative. And by the way, just so people are, I don't get attacked afterwards. We pay for everything. We're not using socialized medicine. I pay private doctor, private hospital, private everything. I don't take anything from the system.

whatsoever. We're paying full price and people are just like so thrilled to see us. And it's just, you know, like one of the things I enjoy about the podcast, I get to talk to people who think differently, right? Like it really forces you to kind of confront the way you think about things. And me and you have done this dance. Well, this would be the third time on the podcast, but certainly on stage at the Cornerstone Forum. It was once again, right? You, you just look at the world in such a unique way that most, you know, well, we're going through it right now here in Canada, right? Like, people were very proud, as you pointed out at the start, you travel around. I remember traveling in Europe, having my Canadian, we're going to Finland,

having my Canadian little patch and being proud of it. And everybody would come up and talk to you and be so proud of it. And now, you know, since roughly COVID, I would say, people have really struggled with the Canadian flag, which is interesting to watch, right? Which means they're struggling with, do I want to be Canadian? In Alberta, here specifically, there's a huge conversation going on about whether or not do we stay in Canada. Do we even care to be Canadian anymore? It's an interesting thing to watch play out, which is people kind of confronting,

like, what are we? What do we want to be? What actually means the most to us? Is it that we're Canadian? Or is it, you know, you go back to your story of, meeting and forgive me, was it the president of Paraguay? Yeah, Santiago Pena president of Paraguay. And him saying it's freedom.

And you're like, holy crap, this is awesome. It's like, well, the older I get, it's a set of values I'm looking for. It's the ability to succeed and have my kids not have to worry about. And I'm sure there's, you know, I was just talking to a buddy of mine who lives out in BC. And he was talking about how drag queen story hour had come into the elementary school system. three times last year to kids and and you're like yeah like yeah and he's like I don't care what you think I'm like you don't need to say that to me because I've already had my thoughts on it but like I think most parents just don't want that thrust upon their kids once again I'm gonna I'm

gonna throw it back in your court like in all these Latin American countries are they doing drag queen story hour are they doing all this stuff it's no way none of this woke behavior you're down here. This just, it does not exist. We all look at what's going on in Canada and the US with this woke stuff. None of us can figure it out. It just does not make any sense. The only thing that I can come up with is it's a mental disease. It's a mental disease and there's something wrong with these people's brains and I don't know. They're just crazy. Like, I just don't get it. I don't really have anything else to add. Like it does not comprehend. I don't comprehend it. I don't see it. It's not part of my life. I have nothing to do with it.

We only hear about it when I when I talk to Canadian or American clients. It's nowhere else in the world. So what you're telling me is I go back to it. People should just come down and check it out for themselves. 100%. 100%. I mean, there is direct flights. You're not a vegetable. You're not rooted to the spot. You can get up. you can go and see and come and verify. And if you like it, amazing. And if you don't, what's the harm? You spent a couple of days on a vacation.

Go to the beach. Like, it could change your whole life. But you got to try, right? Well, and hearing different, you know, I was talking with a, once again, I've had a busy week of talking to people from across Alberta and then, of course, in a BC. And one of the things that conversations with you always spur on, is like, huh, maybe a guy should just go take a flight.

Just go see. Maybe you don't like it. But I don't, I guess I don't hear from you going, Panama is the only way. You are very much like, man, there is like a ton of countries out there that are attractive for a lot of different reasons. Similar in a lot of senses, because with you, you focus on certain areas. But at the same time, you're like, there's a lot of different places in the world. a guy or a family could go visit and start to maybe see probably Canada, specifically, in a different light.

So we talked today about El Salvador, O'Kelly, right-leaning, pro-business, bringing in lots of people. We talk about Argentina, libertarian president, Javier Miele. We said talk about Santiago Pena of Paraguay, right-leaning, pro-business, open the doors, pro-foreign direct investment. Panama, we have Raoul-Molino, who's the president. here, pro-business, right-leaning. We've got Mayor-Meyer,

who's the Panama City Mayor, Panama City Mayor, guys like 36, 37 years old, Bitcoin affectionado, tech first, very, very exciting, doing amazing things here. Then we even see, like, even Colombia, who, under the last administration,

or the last elections, elected a socialist, but he'll be out soon. He'll be out really, really, soon and all of the state elections went so far right that the left just got absolutely destroyed. And that country next year is going to see a huge transformation. Bolivia is going right now as well. Bolivia is like a completely socialist country for decades is now going right. Like the whole continent is shifting to the right. And it's just one by one by one by one.

it's more freedom, more pro-business, more foreign direct investment, and no socialism because they've just been burned. And like, show me where that's happening in Europe. Show me where that's happening anywhere else in the world. I mean, it's a complete shift of an entire continent in a certain direction, one that supports freedom. Amazing. If I go back to your fourth child, you had in Mexico, why did you pick Mexico?

I picked Mexico because some of the best countries were already done. I wanted to try new things. So we have a small company called My Birth Abroad, My Birth Abroad.com, where I started with another client of mine and a colleague of mine where we help people to give birth overseas. And both his second and my second child were born in Brazil. So we had experience with that. And we've helped a lot of people do that. Then his third and my third were both born in Chile.

And then I could have done Panama where we live right now, but the child's already going to be a resident of Panama because we live here. And I'm soon going to be a Panamanian citizen. And so we're looking around at other countries. Costa Rica is an option. Maybe if we have number five, then maybe Costa Rica would be number five. But Mexico is a good option because the parents get instant permanent residency and even the grandparents get instant permanent residency. And if I wanted a Mexican citizenship, all I would need to do is live there for. 18 months out of a 24 month period and then make an application.

Probably take about a year afterwards, but I don't need to be in the country that year. So I can get another passport and Mexican's actually a really strong passport, much stronger than a lot of people realize. You get a Mexican passport in 18 months. So child gets a benefit. My mom gets a benefit. My mother and father-in-law, misoegroos, they all get a benefit. So, I mean, there's a couple hour flight and it was fun.

and I got to go do it with my wife. This is probably, this probably goes, you know, is a very simple question, but you know, what's the importance or what do you see

is the importance of holding multiple passports? Like, break that down for me. There can be a lot of advantages for holding multiple passports. So let's say that, Sean,

you like what McKell says, and, you know, you listen to your friend, Mikkel, and we move you down to a tax-free country. But in a year from now

or two years from now, or five years from now, Canada decides that they're going to tax like the U.S. taxes, they're going to tax on worldwide income. No matter where you live in the world, they want a bite of your apple. They're going to reach into your pocket and they're going to take the apple out. They're going to take a bite of that apple. There's nothing you can do about it. But if you have a second passport, if you have a second citizenship, you can actually get

rid of your Canadian citizenship and still live. You're not stateless. And you don't have any filing requirements or anything like that. Now, is Canada going to do this? Probably. Probably they will start taxing on worldwide income, no matter where you live in the world. France is doing it. The Netherlands is proposing doing it.

A whole bunch of countries in Europe want to do it because the countries are bankrupt, because socialism doesn't work. And so they need to follow people. So they have these horrible policies. They push productive members of society out of the country. They move overseas. And now they want to follow them. So what options do you have?

This is a complete mafia. They're just, they're so abusive. All right. That's an extreme example, but to be honest, a very likely example of what's going to happen. But let's take some not extreme examples, all right? What happens if your wife puts your jeans in the washing machine and your passport's in there and it gets destroyed? Okay. Happened to a friend of mine, a colleague of mine.

It's exactly what happened. His girlfriend washed his clothes. Passport destroyed. Middle of COVID. They're not issuing passports. six months goes by, he can't get another passport, he can't travel internationally, can't do anything, he has an international business, he needs to be overseas regularly, couldn't travel.

Well, that's not good. You know, how about Canada is losing visa-free access to foreign countries, all right? Our passport is getting worse year after year after year. I actually got, you'll like this one. I got refused opening a bank account overseas because I'm a Canadian citizen and they don't want to deal with Canadians because the Canadian government is too abusive. Amazing, right? So I can use a second passport for these types of things, where you could use a second passport for these types of things. There's so many different reasons that being a dual national or

having, you know, and I say dual, I really mean more than one. Can be two, can be five. It doesn't really matter. But having optionality is really what you need. If you only have one option, then that's it. There's very little moves you can make. But if you have more citizenships, more passports, more bank accounts, more brokerage accounts, more real estate overseas, now you have a lot more options. It's more difficult to control you. It's more difficult for them to tell you what to do. Or, you know, you can you can stand up and leave, you know, and I like options. So I think that's something people should think about. Well, I replayed Brian Burke in July. I did throwback Thursdays of some episodes that I recorded way, way back in the day.

And Brian Burke said, give yourself good options and you'll make good choices. And, you know, he's talking about hockey in a career in that realm. You're talking about, you know, when you're watching, you know, if you're sitting listening to this show and you, you know, paid attention over the last few years and you're staring at your country, specifically here in Canada, do things, you've probably already entertained some of this conversation already. Some of the hurdles that really stop a group of people is usually money, right? Like it's not like it's 10 bucks and also, you know, even you were talking about Argentina.

If they were to do where you could buy a house and have instant citizenship, you know, the $500,000, it's like, well, you just take away the housing market here in Canada and you walk in and your citizenship, uh, citizen, sorry, in Argentina. But for a lot of people, they don't, that's a tough pill to swallow. And they're trying to navigate that. Is there? And I know this is probably, you know, like this is probably not the way that the world works. But is there a cost effective country that's trying to attract the everyday blue collar working man to their country?

Definitely Paraguay. I mean, we do people's immigration there. you're talking a couple thousand dollars in legal work, a couple of grand, and no investment required. And they are so open for business. They need people. They need skilled people in that country. I have it from the president's mouth himself who wants to attract people to the country. Okay. Country of seven million people and they're growing like gangbusters right now because they have good laws and they respect freedom. So I mean, if you don't have a ton of money, I think that's a really good option.

Now, why do people not have a lot of money? Because of the abusive systems in Canada. How are you going to get a lot of money? By removing yourself from an abusive relationship, all right? The Stockholm syndrome that you have with your government, you have to cut that out. You got to get a divorce with CRA. Say goodbye.

Close the door. Leave because you'll never build wealth in a situation, which is confiscating over 50% half of what you earn every year. You're funding the enemy. Like it's like you just can't do it. Any final thoughts before I let you out of here. A, I just appreciate you coming on because I'm going to say, I probably butcher this or I'm hammering this home over and over again. One of the interesting things about bringing you on is you definitely look at the world a heck of a lot different than most people I bring on the show. Right. And the birthing thing is just I, A, congrats. I should have said that

off the hop because I feel like since I've known you, you've had two. kids, two more kids, I believe, right? Like, it's just like every time I talk to your new country, having a new kid. And so that's always interesting to me because you're the only person I know that does that. And I'm sure there's more out there that I don't even realize and they'll probably text me. It's like, oh, we did this. But certainly in my realm, that is a unusual idea. Yet I've listened to you talk about it now. And I'm like, I get it. I'm starting to get this thing. Any final thoughts before I let you out of here that we haven't talked about, you know, before we hop off today? Well, very quick.

And I think that, you know, if you're up for it, we should come back and have a larger conversation about families because I got a lot to say about families and a lot to say about how governments really don't want you to have a large family and how they're trying to dissuade families from having multiple children. and is this Malthusian type of thought process that there's finite resources in the world, when in reality we know that the universe is infinite and there are many resources. So I'm having lots of kids because I think this is an excellent way to be able to fight back, to be able to raise critically, critical thinking, entrepreneurial children. And we've got four and God willing, I will have a fifth. And I think that having a big family is such a blessing, but it's very difficult to do in a place like Canada that taxes you.

to death. So, you know, if you like kids and you want to have a larger family, Latin America is very family first in everything that they do. These are Christian countries. They're very, very, put the family before anything. And I like being in a family first country, which I don't see in a progressive transgender, you know, chop your willy off type of environment, right? So I don't know that's a positive note to end on but um you know i am who i am and i just don't care sean so i just that's what attracted me the first time of like twisting your arm to come to the cornerstone forum right i wasn't taking no for an answer i i i relent we had a good time at the end of the earth um yes we had a good party at the edge of the earth yes i still use that line all the

time you know that's true but march six and seventh you guys heard it here first sean newman will be speaking at the wealth, freedom, and passport conference, March 6th, 2026. We're going to fly him down. Going to be amazing. Come meet Sean in person in Panama City, Panama. Looking forward to seeing you, sir. Mikel, I appreciate you coming on. It won't be the last time.

Best of luck with four kids, eh? My hat's off to you. Thank you, I appreciate you talking about family values. That speaks high on my end too. And best luck with your summit coming up here. And like I say, it'll be down the show notes. folks. So if you're, you're interested in checking that out, check out the show notes or just search X-PAC money because it comes up as well.

Amazing. Sean, thanks so much. Appreciate it, brother.