Transcript of the above video: 

One of the things in expat land that seems to be of concern sometimes is the notion of the "power" of one's passport; how powerful one's passport is; can one's passport get you into a lot of different countries. And recently, I think it's kind of a little bit of a contrivance, but it is a useful metric when you know how many countries you can use your passport for Visa free; it can provide some insight, so I think it's useful, but I think it's kind of over exaggerated. It's like, "oh this passport has one less country." Well if that one last country is a fairly obscure place, what does it really matter? 

That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from CBS News, that is cbsnews.com, the article is titled: American passport not as powerful as it used to be, dropping to 10th place in an annual ranking. Quoting directly: "The U.S. is on the brink of exiting the top 10 in an annual ranking of the world's most powerful passports for the first time in the index's 20-year history." Well again, it's important to point out this thing is only 20 years old. It's an interesting metric; it's a metric I think that is kind of overblown. Quoting further: "American passports fell to a 10th place tie jointly held by Iceland and Lithuania in this year's Henley Passport Index - which bases its rankings on how many destinations a passport's holder can enter without a Visa. The U.S. has fallen in the rankings every year since 2014, when its passports were ranked as the most powerful. The U.S. has visa-free access to 182 destinations." Well that is pretty substantial, okay? Quoting further: "whereas a passport from Singapore, which holds the top spot, grants the holder visa-free access to 193 destinations." An extra 11, and again, I would be curious to know what those other 11 are. Are they places like that Singapore has no particular problem with but may have more global significance or may have some adversarial relationship with the United States? Like are they places like North Korea, that you can get into Visa free with a Singapore passport but you can't with the U.S. Passport. I'm not saying it is North Korea, or Iran - I am not saying there is anything wrong with Iran - just are they places that people don't usually go as far as tourism or even business travel? And again, you may want access to certain places that other people don't want. The metric is useful, but it is sort of the "devil is in the details", I think is important to point out. Quoting further: "In a Tuesday news release, Henley, a London-based global migration consultant group, noted that countries like the U.S. and U.K. "appear to be retreating behind more restrictive entry policies". Anybody that is aware of the U.S. and U.K.'s Immigration policies, not so much the U.K. but the U.S., I mean 214b has been in effect in the Immigration and Nationality Act for decades, I mean it is kind of nonsense statement. "Your passport is no longer just a travel document - it is a reflection of your country's diplomatic influence and international relationships". Again, a lot of this metric, some of it is useful. I think as a broad metric if you had like three zones, like green, yellow, red or something and if your passport is in the green zone the difference between having 182 versus 193, I don't know how big a deal that is. I have to imagine that a lot of that 11 jurisdictions, if you are an American applying for a Visa, it's probably going to be a fairly straightforward process unless they are engaged in active hostilities against the United States.

So somewhat useful metric. At the same time a little bit of an over-hype in many ways. That said, interesting to note that the U.S.'s "ranking" is lower than it was the year before. That said, it remains to be seen how this will continue, so we will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.