There has been noise, much noise, over the insistence of Premier David Burt, Alexa Lightbourne and Chris Famous to move Bermuda’s Caricom status from associate to full membership.

Mr Burt has spoken about this in sweeping, emotional terms, yet Bermudians have not been shown the one thing any serious jurisdiction produces before increasing geopolitical exposure: a written risk assessment.

The world we are entering does not reward sentiment. It rewards power, leverage and enforcement. In that world, small countries do not get the benefit of doubt. They get assessed, labelled and acted upon.

That is why a major US federal indictment filed by the US Department of Justice against Nicolás Maduro and others must be the anchor to every point that follows.

It describes a cocaine trafficking enterprise routed through the region and, critically, alleges corrupt protection along the “Caribbean route”, with politicians paid for protection from arrest and to allow traffickers to operate with impunity. That is the operating environment US prosecutors allege.

Now compare that to what is happening here. Bermuda’s Drug Information Network reports seizures rising from 55,492.19 grams in 2023 to 309,574.17 grams in 2024, a sixfold increase. In any other context, a spike of that scale would trigger a risk review, a threat assessment, and a public statement of controls. Here, we are expected to accept silence.

Layer on political proximity. Bermudian officials have been visibly cosy with regional leadership at the Caricom level and through PLP-facing engagements.

When the US starts drawing lines around trafficking networks and political protection, it does not only look at who is guilty. It looks at who is connected, who is close, and who is exposed. That is how reputational contagion works. That is how de-risking happens. That is how small jurisdictions get squeezed.

Bermuda, led by Premier David Burt, should be nervous, not because anyone has proven Bermuda is involved in anything, but because the combination of a US indictment describing corruption along Caribbean trafficking routes, a sudden surge in seizures here and political closeness to leaders and jurisdictions potentially already under scrutiny creates a risk profile that cannot be managed by speeches and optimism.

Government needs to stop treating this as branding and start treating it as national security and economic survival. Before taking another step toward full Caricom membership, publish the risk assessment the public still has not seen: what this alignment means for trade, banking and compliance credibility, security co-operation and Bermuda’s exposure if the next tranche of revelations points closer to home.

In times like these, silence is a choice that comes with consequences and Bermuda should not be led quietly like lambs to slaughter.

∙ Nicolette J Reiss is a member of the Free Democratic Movement