🇺🇸 To the American Expats in Portugal: This Is Bigger Than Just Escaping Trump

 

As the world watches the political drama unfold in the United States, I feel it's time to speak directly — and from the heart — to those of you who have chosen to build a life here in Portugal.

Many of you are here not just for the sunshine or the quality of life, but because you’ve grown disillusioned — even outraged — by what’s been happening back home. And I want you to know: I stand with you.

Let me be absolutely clear.
I am completely opposed to Trump’s agenda — not just for its authoritarian tendencies, but for its broader implications on a global scale. What we’re witnessing is not simply a domestic power struggle or a cultural backlash. It is a deliberate, calculated retreat from democratic leadership on the world stage.

This is not the end of America as a superpower — it is its rebranding as “just another power”, willing to play the great game of spheres of influence, resource control, and silent expansion. The rhetoric around places like Greenland, the hints about reclaiming the Panama Canal, the growing proximity to autocratic regimes — these aren’t isolated stunts. They’re signs of a new world order in the making. One where the values that once underpinned the idea of “the West” — cooperation, diplomacy, freedom — are being traded for short-term dominance, secrecy, and control.

But there is another shift happening — quieter, but maybe just as important.

More and more of you — the Americans who have settled in Portugal — are choosing not just to live here, but to become citizens of this small, peaceful, democratic nation. Many of you no longer vote in the U.S. Instead, you're preparing to vote here.

That choice is profound.

It means your patriotism has found a new home. One where your experience of what went wrong in the U.S. can serve as a warning, and your civic participation can help prevent Portugal from falling into the same traps — the seductive rhetoric of ultra-liberalism, the toxic culture wars of the far right, the erosion of solidarity and public trust.

But for that to happen, you must stay vigilant. You must listen, learn, engage — not as expats watching from a distance, but as citizens building something new. Your voice matters here. Your vote will count. And your story — of having lived through a democratic backslide — could be one of the most valuable tools we have to stop it from repeating.

So here's my appeal:

Let your new citizenship be active, not just administrative.
Understand the social fabric you're entering.
Support the public services, the communities, the policies that keep Portugal fair and human.
And help us keep the dream of democracy alive — not just for Portugal, but for all of us.

Com solidariedade e esperança,
Ulisses Carvalho
#NotJustAnotherRealtor — and definitely not just another bystander.