Five OECS states — St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and Saint Lucia — sell citizenship to fund budgets no tax base of that size could fund. The Fund's explainer treats this as a fiscal instrument with a volatility profile rather than as a scandal.

That is the more honest frame, and also the more uncomfortable one. It turns the question from should this exist into what replaces the revenue — which is a harder question and the one the region actually faces.

Brussels and Washington are applying pressure on the demand side. Nobody has publicly costed the supply side for the states that would have to absorb the loss.

Video: International Monetary Fund. Carried for reference; WiredJA is not affiliated with the IMF and does not endorse its conclusions.