Originally Posted by KoruPilot

You can't just walk up to the FAA and get a licence mate, not if you want to fly for reward.

You CAN get a licence conversion to fly privately, or ferry a US registered aircraft, but if you want to be able to be employed you will need to do the FAA ATPL written and a flight test. Up until recently, if you are on an FAA ticket, all you'd have to do for Canada is take the written, no flight test. That may actually still be the case.

Other than Europe it's about the same, ATPL written followed by a check ride with the people who hired you.

Apparently you have not been to Asia or the Middle East where there are loads of Americans flying. If you took the ratio of foreigners working in the States to Americans working as foreigners for overseas airlines you might be surprised.

I'm wondering what the real problem here is. I've managed to get job's in all sorts of countries who were nice enough to have me (never the US mind you), and wrote the ATPL exams for each one. Perhaps, instead of bagging people, you might want to just try a little harder.Or maybe do just that before writing a post like this again.