I renounced my US citizenship

is expensive only since they want to investigate you as a presumed criminal or tax dodger (the movie Brazil comes to mind)

is a result of their non-compliance with international norms

is the result of the US declaring you have a status that was never requested

As an expat I consider all US citizens to be indentured servants due to this requirement to buy independence from the US and whatever it chooses to enact next. Effectively, these changes are not noticed by the US' domestics, but those who think they "can flee to Canada" when they have ethical problems with the US are now deluding themselves. "If you don't like it, then leave" may have been sarcastic BS, but at least it was a real choice that many people made in the Vietnam era, etc. If you don't like us leave us money (which we will use in the ways you probably object to)" is something else.

I will find it both funny and sad that when the people who supported the two party system are pissed by someone like Trump implementing fascist policies they will finally realize that their own willingness to destroy our basic civil rights makes it impossible for them to avoid helping a system they find morally repugnent and criminal.

Agree this is worth something. I would propose a substantially decreased federal tax bracket (maybe 1-5%) for expats. Sort of like how you pay a decreased vehicle tax when it's not in use.

The cons might be small, but the pros might be even smaller.

Your government spends billions of dollars on wildly unsuccessful defense projects while at the same time arguing the there's no way to deal with poverty, access to education, homelessness, etc. By cutting back on defence spending, the US could still remain the most powerful military nation in the world and guarantee that every citizen gets a quality education and spends their lives healthy and well maintained. Instead, you insist on going trillions of dollars in debt and then complaining that the poor aren't paying their fair share while the people with so much wealth that it's literally impossible to comprehend use every loophole in the book to avoid paying anything at all. Warren Buffet himself has commented on how he pays less tax than his secretary does.

Meanwhile, your entire government is bought and run by corporations and lobby groups; because money runs the campaigns and the person with the most money wins, elected officials spend a huge portion of their time "in office" not serving their country, their electorate, or even their benefactors, in favour of travelling around, having meetings and dinners and fundraisers, so that they can ensure they get elected again. If you court the right interests then not only will they help pay for you to get re-elected over and over, when you're done with public life they'll offer you a consultancy position where you can make further millions for years convincing your old friends who are still in office to vote the way you want them to because you're old friends.

The entire US system, is, to much of the rest of the world, a farce made manifest. Many of us fail to understand how your populace even got into such ridiculous circumstances, let alone continues to tolerate them year after year.

To claim that someone overseas should pay thousands of euros to tell the US government that they owe no tax while millionaires are using fully legal loopholes that their rich congressional friends refuse to close to shirk millions of dollars of taxes is patently ridiculous.

Fix your system to stop exploiting the poor and giving rights, privileges, and power to the rich elite and you can claim that your system is the envy of the world.

And as for 'how it got that way'? Years and years of economic growth on the backs of slaves imported from Africa certainly helped. Being able to bootstrap your economy by cutting out the business owner's largest expense is certainly an effective way of getting ahead.