Most of the time, the people who run the world are careful with their words. The press release says “partnership.” The communiqué says “shared priorities.” What actually gets decided, and how, stays behind closed doors.
This month, two stories cut through that. In one, a senior diplomat reportedly said out loud what is usually only implied. In the other, the country that built its entire financial reputation on staying out of other people’s fights confirmed that it no longer promises to. Put them side by side and they tell the same story: no single country’s rules are guaranteed to stay the same, not even the safest ones.
Story one: “We can do that here”
According to reporting by the Wall Street Journal, picked up this month by other outlets, the U.S. Ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, was at a dinner in Athens in March with Greece’s Energy Minister, Stavros Papastavrou, and other Greek and American officials. The talk turned to Romania, whose government was in crisis at the time. Guilfoyle reportedly suggested the United States had played a part, and then added:
“We can do that to any country we want. We can do that here.”
“Here” being Greece, a NATO ally and an EU member. The minister reportedly pushed back that the U.S. couldn’t replace a Greek government elected by the Greek people. Athens’ government spokesman later said the subject “was never raised.” Opposition parties demanded an explanation. Guilfoyle’s lawyer disputed the characterization of the exchange, and the State Department put out a statement about its “strategic partnership” with Romania.
We weren’t at that dinner, and the remark is disputed. We’re not claiming Washington toppled anyone. Our point doesn’t depend on it. Whether this was a real threat, a boast, or a bad joke after a glass of wine, it tells you how some powerful people talk about other countries’ sovereignty when they think no one is listening.
The context matters too. The reporting ties the dinner to the ambassador’s push to sell American liquefied natural gas across Southeastern Europe, and to a wider pattern in which governments seen as awkward on energy, or labelled “pro-Putin,” come under heavy pressure at election time. You don’t have to take a side in any of that to see what it means. The rules in a country can be shaped by forces that have nothing to do with the people who live there, or the people who put their money there.
Story two: even Switzerland
If any country was supposed to be the permanent safe harbour, it was Switzerland. For generations, Swiss neutrality was the whole point. Wealthy families from every side of every conflict parked money there precisely because Switzerland didn’t take sides.
That changed in 2022. After Russia invaded Ukraine, Switzerland adopted the EU’s sanctions and froze Russian assets, and it has kept aligning with the packages that followed, covering energy, banking and the military sector. It has also stepped up cooperation with NATO through the Partnership for Peace programme, and its defence minister has argued for deeper security ties.
This month the Swiss had a chance to lock neutrality back in. According to Martin Armstrong’s report on the result, voters rejected an initiative that would have banned sanctions without UN approval and barred military cooperation unless Switzerland was directly attacked. It failed by about 70% to 30%, and it failed in every district. The Swiss chose to keep their options open.
You can argue that was the sensible choice for the Swiss. But look at it from the depositor’s side. Armstrong’s point is that neutrality was the foundation Swiss finance was built on, and that once assets can be frozen for geopolitical reasons, every government and investor in the world recalculates. China, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states have all drawn the same lesson: money held in someone else’s system can become a tool in someone else’s fight.
Nobody announced that Switzerland had stopped being neutral. It happened one reasonable-sounding step at a time. That is usually how the rules change.
What the two stories have in common
One is a threat, the other a vote. One is loud, the other quiet. But both say the same thing to anyone holding wealth: the rules of a country can be reshaped by forces far bigger than the people who live there or keep their money there. And when it happens, it tends to happen fast.
Greece already knows this. In the summer of 2015 the banks closed overnight. Cash withdrawals were capped at €60 a day. Money couldn’t leave the country. People who had done everything “right” (a good job, savings in a regulated bank, a home) woke up to find that the money was still theirs on paper but not in practice. Those controls weren’t fully lifted until 2019.
Greece is not an outlier. Look at the last dozen years:
- 2013 · CyprusDepositors bailed inLarge deposits at the two biggest banks were written down to rescue them. A “safe” EU banking centre, changed in a weekend.
- 2015 · GreeceBanks shut, capital controls imposed€60 a day at the ATM. Controls lasted four years.
- 2019 · LebanonSavings frozen in placeBanks informally blocked withdrawals and transfers abroad. Many depositors still can’t reach their money.
- 2022 · CanadaAccounts frozen without a court orderEmergency powers let banks freeze accounts linked to the trucker protests. A G7 democracy, not a faraway place.
- 2022 · SwitzerlandNeutrality gives way to sanctionsThe world’s classic safe haven froze Russian assets in line with the EU.
- 2022 · RussiaHundreds of billions in reserves frozenOrdinary Russians abroad found cards and accounts cut off overnight.
- 2026 · Greece, again“We can do that here”Now the pressure is being described out loud.
In every one of these cases, the people hurt most were not doing anything wrong. They had simply put everything in one place, under one set of rules, and trusted that the rules would hold.
Why one bolt hole isn’t enough
The natural reaction is to go looking for the “safe” country. Somewhere stable, well run, friendly to foreigners. Get the residency, buy the apartment, open the account, done.
We understand that instinct. We’ve acted on it ourselves. But the dinner in Athens makes the problem plain. Greece is an EU member, a NATO ally and a democracy, and a senior diplomat of its closest ally reportedly spoke about replacing its government as if it were a line item. If that’s how the conversation goes about Greece, no single country is beyond it. Not Dubai, not Portugal, not the United States, not even Switzerland, and not Cayman either.
A bolt hole is a bet that the place you picked will stay the way it was on the day you picked it. The world keeps showing us that bet is a poor one.
The question isn’t “which country is safe?” It’s “what happens to my family if any one country changes the rules?”
What we built instead: a process, not a place
At Gun Bay, we stopped trying to predict which jurisdiction would stay safe. Nobody can. Instead we designed a structure that assumes some of them won’t, and keeps working when that happens. It’s what we use for our own capital, and it’s what we help members put in place for theirs.
It rests on four ideas:
The most important part isn’t any single piece. It’s the process: we review it regularly, as a group, against what’s changing in the world. When a jurisdiction starts to tighten, we don’t have to scramble or sell in a panic. We already have somewhere else to lean. We shift weight from one leg to another and keep walking.
Think of it as a fleet rather than a harbour. If one port closes, the other ships are already at sea.
What you can do this month
You don’t need a family office to start. A few practical steps:
- Map your single points of failure. How many countries, banks and currencies does your wealth really depend on? If the answer is one, that’s your first job.
- Open one rail abroad before you need it. A second bank account in a different jurisdiction is cheap, quiet insurance. Accounts are far harder to open in a crisis.
- Hold some wealth outside the banking system. Physical metal in a reputable vault, in a different country from your bank, changes your exposure.
- Keep everything above board. Flexibility only works if it’s fully compliant and properly reported. A structure that can’t survive scrutiny isn’t protection.
- Set a review date. Put it in the calendar every six months. The world will have changed. Your structure should be able to change with it.
When people in power say the quiet part out loud, it’s tempting to get angry or to shrug. We’d suggest a third option: take them at their word, and plan accordingly.