American expats - testimonials about the upcoming elections

I am not an expat ‘yet’ so I hope it’s okay that I chime in. My husband & I have been considering moving out of country for a year or so now if Donald Trump wins the election. We have been considering Portugal or Puerto Vallarta. We would prefer Puerto Vallarta only because it is so much closer to our kids & grandkids.  I believe that Trump will run the country as a dictator & I believe our country will fall within a couple of years. I do not want to spend the remaining years of my life under a dictatorship & I don’t want to lose our retirement money to him or thrown into poverty. I worry about the banking system here collapsing under him so I have been looking into other options. I am aware of the Wise accounts but that is still under American banking. My husband has a civil service pension & we don’t know if Trump will eliminate that if we move out of country & I don’t know if there is a way to find out. Trump may just do it to people who leave the country. Also, would we be able to renew our visas or will he refuse to let those who leave back into the country at all? He is a vindictive person. We also need reliable or at least fairly decent medical & dental. I would love to hear about personal experiences of that from expats living in Puerto Vallarta. So much to consider. I hate the idea of leaving all family but this situation if Trump wins will be a horrible way to live.

Thank you for creating this page. I love it & will be very interested to read others thoughts.

Lori F

Soontobegringa

@lori0077

I could use all of your talking points, apply them to Harris and I would still need pages of text to describe why Harris is unfit for the job, As an aside, can you name one thing that Harris has accomplished in her three years as Vice President? She promises to fix the world, yet, she has been the second most powerful human being on the planet for three and a half years and all we have to show for it are 10 million invaders crossing our southern border.

I would love to hear about personal experiences of that from expats living in Puerto Vallarta. So much to consider. - @lori0077

Hi Lori,

This is a forum about Portugal. Not about Mexico...

@vicdagraca She is the Vice President which generally means they don’t have much to do but to support the President but she has been working on getting to the cause of the massive migration problem to try to slow it or solve it at it’s core in each of the countries where the migrants are coming from. This is a smart thing to do although the countries themselves have to be willing to work on the issues within their countries too such as the violence & poverty, lack of jobs, etc. This is Joe Biden’s administration, not Kamala’s per se but she is a far better choice than Trump. Trump is not an option if we want democracy & the country to survive.

@JohnnyPT

I understand. We are still considering Portugal so I would like to hear expats experiences with the medical & dental there too. Sorry to have included the Mexico thoughts.

I don't know, there may be American outposts in Portugal like there reportedly are in Mexico, but for me, I think you should look at Portugal as a question of adopting a country.  We just got back from a couple days in Porto, and that's sure an accommodating place for English speaking tourists of which there were many, but that isn't really a way to live.  The language, and the culture in general, are Portugal.  Read what you can about the Portuguese people and language and decide if it's the direction that appeals to you.  I don't think it's an ideal refuge for Americans, I mean just a place to camp out because their home got too ugly.  I can sure sympathize with that, but there it is.

On the other hand, in the event the nightmare becomes reality, there sure are going to be a lot of Americans in line at the consulates, the immigration offices, the real estate agents.  The immigration bureaucracy is on its knees here already (though they're apparently making a good effort to catch up), and real estate isn't in such copious supply that a big surge in a little country can be absorbed without demand driving prices way up.

Let's hope not.

I will do my best to address the OPs questions… I’m afraid this will be long winded, so I apologize in advance. 😊

We are retired and have been part-time expats in Portugal since 2021. We did this for many reasons. At first it was a desire to explore the world during our retirement years while we are still mentally and physically able. However our strong push to make a more permanent decision was due to the 2016 election results, further fueled by the non-peaceful transition of power to the current administration, and what seems to be a country that is becoming a pressure cooker ready to blow its top.

While we originally committed to straddling the Atlantic Ocean and enjoying the best of both worlds for some years, it became extraordinarily clear to us that the strong and dangerous divide amongst the American people and our rapidly changing culture has made the US a country that, regardless of who gets into office, is very possibly irretrievably broken.

We are concerned that regardless of the voting outcome, the threat of violence is very real, either by another violent insurrection or the voting of a self-admitted wannabe dictator into power. As a result, this year we made the decision to change our living accommodations in Portugal from a small apartment to a villa so that we have what we feel is a more comfortable and permanent living situation. Before returning to Portugal, we scheduled ourselves to vote overseas absentee, and prepared ourselves to stay in Portugal full-time indefinitely.

We consider ourselves fairly even keeled. Not a lot causes us to cry that the sky is falling, and we are definitely not what would be considered “doomsdayers.” But this time around, it is different. As citizens of one of the world’s superpowers with significant political and economic ties worldwide, we certainly have concerns on what the ripple effect the outcome of this election will have on relationships with other countries, including our current allies, and how that might affect Americans living abroad. We have already experienced a lot of questions and comments from people in the various countries we have visited over the past 8 years, and we have seen a significant change in the way that the world has started to view the Americans and the USA.

We are concerned with the value of the USD and what will happen with our investments in the US if turmoil happens after this election. This was not something we were worried about in the past elections, even if our chosen candidate did not get elected. This too has pushed us to look at alternatives for protecting our nest egg. However, the US economy and politics also has an effect on many other economies around the world, so the path forward for this is not totally clear.

As for living in Portugal as an American expat: the welcoming attitude of the vast majority of the country’s natural citizens, the availability of high quality healthcare at an extremely accessible cost (albeit maybe not the fanciness we have become accustomed to), the civility of the residents, and the high level of safety and generally low levels of crime throughout the country make Portugal the best choice for us. Yes, it is taking us some time to get used to how things operate here, and that can be frustrating, but we acknowledge that we are guests in this country and we chose to be here, so we do our best to work within the system rather than complaining about how it is “not like back home.” And yes, taxes are high and have heard about political corruption with the money, but we actually see beneficial returns for the money paid (subsidized medical being a big one) and are happy to pay our fair share for the privilege of being here.

Portugal is not without its own political faults; however, every country—including the US—has had some form of them since the beginning. There will always be disagreements in philosophy and policy. There will always be issues with enough resources for one group or another. There will always be some level of not-so-great people in high positions.The key is how the leaders and citizens of the country choose to work through those issues. To date, what we have seen of the EU—and more specifically, Portugal—there are outspoken and strong opinions, but it seems as though people usually choose to voice them with words and activism rather than violence; and in the mean time, they largely choose to live within the laws while working to find compromise and solutions to problems.

And there lies the difference! In the US, since Trump's public persona became acceptable in a large percentage of the population, it became OK to label anyone that disagreed with you as stupid and evil. Solidifying the opinion of many that violence was acceptable in defense of one's position as the opinions of those others were dangerous and UnAmerican. A country founded on freedom of religion is now deemed founded on Christian principles and white supremacy. Some much anger and hate! No longer a sense of community as we're now such deeply divided.

Election related fight stops plane flight..................

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 … r-maga-cap

A Chinese gentleman I met on a flight once asked my opinion today of the upcoming election and whether I thought Kamala had leadership qualities. My response was Trump's a selfish idiot and she's an intelligent woman with a successful political career. Read a blog yesterday stating Lincoln chose cabinet members with opposing views so he could reach compromises. I trust Kamala to make wise choices in determining competent advisors. His response "Nice."

Folks, it would probably be possible to find discussions somewhere else, about the relative merits of American political candidates, and steer towards matters involving Portugal here.

Yesterday a real estate agent came by, leafleting the neighborhood, volunteering to sell your house.  We had a fair amount of that in Seattle when the market got real hot.  First time I've seen it here (medium size city in central Portugal.)