Steven Crump and his family will have the opportunity to apply for Swiss citizenship. In deciding to do this, he wants to be clear that he isn’t abandoning the United States. It is possible to be both Swiss and American, he says.

By Steve Crump

Well, it’s official. Earlier this week, Donald J Trump, a man who is wholly and manifestly unqualified to be anyone’s next president, was formally elected to take the reins from Barack Obama as the United States’ 45th president. How this happened is a subject for another day. I bring it up only as a prelude to commenting that it is merely a coincidence that he will take office in the same year that we become eligible to apply for Swiss citizenship.

As an American expat, I was annoyed in the days following the election by the reported stampede to apply for Canadian citizenship. First of all, if things get that bad there will be no escape anyway. The world is no longer that small.

Second, it’s embarrassing when a bunch of your compatriots suddenly behave like asylum seeking refugees at the first sign of trouble. Lastly, I didn’t want anyone to think that, should we seek a Swiss passport, it represents in any way the abandonment of the US.