Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has done everything in its power to make the United States an unattractive destination for immigrants, but now it appears that people are actually leaving the country in reaction to events unfolding.

According to research by Bambridge Accountants, a New York-based firm specializing in U.S. expat tax among other things, more than 5,800 Americans – an all-time high – renounced their citizenship in the first half of 2020. 

One of the main reasons why Americans often turn in their passports is the country's absurd global tax reporting requirements. Unlike most countries that only require residents to file taxes, the U.S. requires taxes to be filed based on nationality. Americans all over the world, even if they've never lived in the country, are required to file with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and in some cases could owe taxes.

Such absurd bureaucracy has driven many to pay the 2,350 U.S. dollar fee and appear at a U.S. embassy to formally renounce their citizenship. This was the case with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson who renounced his U.S. citizenship in 2016 after complaining about this "absolutely outrageous" tax scheme. In 2014, Johnson had apparently owed more than 50,000 dollars to the IRS from the sale of his home in north London. 

It's easy to see why anyone could be annoyed with this policy and decide to cut ties with Uncle Sam. But, the issue of global taxation has been around for a very long time and doesn't fully explain the reason why a record number of Americans – more than a ten-fold increase from the preceding six month period – are ditching their citizenship.

"These are mainly people who already left the U.S. and just decided they've had enough of everything," Alistair Bambridge, a partner at Bambridge Accountants, said to CNN.

"What we've seen is people are over everything happening with President Donald Trump, how the coronavirus pandemic is being handled, and the political policies in the U.S. at the moment."

With nearly 170,000 known deaths due to COVID-19, an unemployment rate hovering near 10 percent, unrelenting police violence against unarmed Black people and an estimated 30-40 million people facing eviction, it's no surprise that many wouldn't want to be a part of this mess anymore even if they don't live in the States. 

Trump surely has a brunt of the blame. Having an American passport, especially now, makes one nearly persona non grata when traveling. Americans are banned from scores of countries due to the uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus within the country –something that's endangered the rest of the world along with the American people. 

Reckless diplomacy and attacks against multilateralism have also alienated the United States and damaged the national pride of many living abroad.

When U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited the Czech Republic last week, for example, the only way I could really categorize the experience was one of embarrassment. Watching my country's top diplomat spew a nonstop stream of lies on television and being openly snubbed by Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who is himself not without scandal, was comical but sobering. The sense one has is that American leadership is nearly, if not entirely, defunct.

Bambridge Accountants thus predicts that this trend of renunciations will only increase if Trump is able to pull out a win in November, but perhaps the trend is a bit more complicated than this. It's doubtful that an administration under former Vice President Joe Biden could reverse all of the endemic trends, especially inequality, that were merely exacerbated by the coronavirus. 

While the crisis, which has only exposed the deep-seated contradictions of American society, has only capitulated under Trump, the foundation of this failed system was laid down before he ever set foot in the White House. After all, the U.S. Congress has equally failed the American people through the leaders in both chambers – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who have political careers spanning back to the 1980s. 

Even more than this is the fact that if such abject inequality can even institutionally exist, it shows that it's an essential institutional mandate. That is to say that if America can be so unequal with no way to counteract it, equality is not one of the country's values. Thus, people simply leave if they want to find some sense of equality, especially in opportunity. 

Imagine yourself being an American expatriate outside of this mess and seeing tens of millions of people go jobless and potentially homeless – some you may know – while the U.S. Senate adjourns until September. You see protests raging across the nation against injustices by police and nothing ever changes except the names of those killed. Maybe you know someone personally that has had or died from the coronavirus. Is that your idea of the American dream? 

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