> U.S. citizenship carries extraterritorial benefits.
Not sure about actual benefits. The US passports is one of the worst when it comes to travel. Many countries have stricter entry rules only for US citizen, or require at least a higher Visa fee in comparison to other Western nations or outright don't allow US citizens entry at all. I found my Austrian passport to be actually extremely beneficial. Most powerful passport is still from Singapore when it comes to extraterritorial benefits.
In terms of getting people out of thorny situations, countries which don't have citizenship based tax laws are also pretty good at that, if not even better, because the US has in fact a lot of scarred relations with other nations whereas other Western nations have it easier to get a country pull some strings in order to get their people out.
> The US passports is one of the worst when it comes to travel
100% wrong! US passport is ranked 7th best in the world. You need very few visas and get waved through customs faster than visitors from most other countries.
Mostly because the gap in international political reach and leverage, respective economic situations and means are too huge for there to be a point.
Also because I suspect the population here to likely be mostly from Western countries. Cf dang’s comment[1] stating that 50% of the userbase is from the US
Will I think it is relevant because the fact that the passport holder benefits from all that makes it one of the best by any reasonable standard, unless you arbitrarily ignore all the worse ones and then say it's the "worst of the best," so to speak.
And I would argue that it’s like comparing professional Formula 1 drivers’ performance to that of professional kart racers. Or a five stars hotel to a motel by the highway.
But I see your point, and we’ll probably have to settle on agreeing to disagree.
Not sure about actual benefits. The US passports is one of the worst when it comes to travel. Many countries have stricter entry rules only for US citizen, or require at least a higher Visa fee in comparison to other Western nations or outright don't allow US citizens entry at all. I found my Austrian passport to be actually extremely beneficial. Most powerful passport is still from Singapore when it comes to extraterritorial benefits.
In terms of getting people out of thorny situations, countries which don't have citizenship based tax laws are also pretty good at that, if not even better, because the US has in fact a lot of scarred relations with other nations whereas other Western nations have it easier to get a country pull some strings in order to get their people out.